LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 




0D0na^717S 




Class 
Book. 



flJMSZ 



L4- 



Copyright ]^°. 



COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT 




ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING 



After the chalk drawing from life by Field Talfourd, Rome, 1859, 
now in the National Portrait Gallery, London 




SELECTED POEMS 



OF 



ELIZABETH BARRETT 
BROWNING 



fSi^^ 





(^ 



Edited 
With Introduction and Notes 

BY 

ELIZABETH LEE 

Author of "A School History of English 
Literature," etc. 




GINN & COMPANY 

BOSTON • NEW YORK • CHICAGO • LONDON 




vi PREFACE 

I have endeavored to show in my introduction, Mrs. 
Browning has done some things that no other poet has 
done, and has said others that no other poet has said. 
And, further, at a time when women are daily playing a 
more important part in the world's history, it may not be 
wholly useless for young people of both sexes to know what 
a woman, whose mind and heart were equally developed, 
thought about the great questions of human life. 

The business of the teacher of literature is not solely to 
fill the student's mind with facts and what is generally 
called useful knowledge ; he must also aim at cultivating 
the student's imagination, at developing his thinking faculty, 
and at demonstrating the lasting pleasure afforded by the 
habit of reading the works of great writers with intelligence 
and sympathy. I trust that he will find in this little volume 
good material on which to work in that direction. 

ELIZABETH LEE. 

London, July 5, 1904. 



CONTENTS 



PAGE 

Introduction ix 



POEMS 

The Sleep . . . * i 

Cowper's Grave 3 

A Sea-side Walk 7 

The Sea-Mew 8 

My Doves 10 

Lessons from the Gorse 13 

The Poet and the Bird 14 

Lady Geraldine's Courtship 15 

Rhyme of the Duchess May 40 

The Lost Bower 61 

The Cry of the Children 77 

Wine of Cyprus 83 

The Romance of the Swan's Nest 90 

The Dead Pan . . -95 

A Musical Instrument 104 

Six Sonnets from the Series entitled "Sonnets from 

THE Portuguese" 106 

Sonnets: 

Exaggeration . . . 109 

Adequacy 109 

Insufficiency no 

Life and Love no 

vii 



viii CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Inclusions iii 

A Denial 112 

Proof and Disproof 114 

Question and Answer 116 

Passages from : 

A Drama of Exile 116 

A Vision of Poets 124 

Aurora Leigh 132 

Casa Guidi Windows 141 

Notes 149 



INTRODUCTION 



Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, afterwards Elizabeth Barrett 
Browning, was born at Coxhoe Hall, near Durham, in the 
north of England, on March 6, 1806. Three years later her 
father bought the estate of Hope End in Herefordshire, and 
there, amid the beautiful scenery of the Malvern Hills, the 
poetess lived till 1832. Reminiscences of her childhood, 
of her delight in the external nature which surrounded 
her, are to be found in her poems, and the fine descriptions 
of English country in Aurora Leigh are drawn from her 
remembrance of Hope End and its neighborhood. In the 
same way George Eliot's admirable descriptions of the 
scenery and characteristics of the midlands in her novels 
are the outcome of her experiences in childhood and girl- 
hood. In a poem entitled Hector in the Garden^ first pub- 
lished in Blackwood^s Magazine in 1846, occur the. following 
lines, which well indicate the little girl's surroundings. 

Nine green years had scarcely brought me 

To my childhood's haunted spring; 

I had life, like flowers and bees, 

In betwixt the country trees, 
And the sun the pleasure taught me 

Which he teacheth everything. 

1 She was fond of planting a bed of flowers to represent the figure of a man ; 
hence the title of this poem. Hector's eyes were of " gentianellas azure," his nose 
of "gillyflowers and box," and "scented grasses put for locks," while purple 
violets formed tlie moutli, lilies the sword, and daisies the breastplate. 

ix 



X INTRODUCTION 

If the rain fell, there was sorrow : 

Little head leant on the pane, 

Little finger drawing down it 

The long trailing drops upon it. 
And the " Rain, rain, come to-morrow," 

Said for charm against the rain. 

If I said it long enough, 

Then the rain hummed dimly off, 

And the sun and I together 

Went a-rushing out of doors : 

We our tender spirits drew 

Over hill and dale in view. 
Glimmering hither, glimmering thither 

In the footsteps of the showers. 

Underneath the chestnuts dripping. 

Through the grasses wet and fair, 

Straight I sought my garden-ground 

With the laurel on the mound. 
And the pear-tree oversweeping 

A side-shadow of green air. 

She refers to her girlish skill in the cultivation of white 
roses in her poem The Lost Bower} In a letter written to a 
friend in 1843 she gives some account of her youthful years. 
She tells how she early made poetry her vocation, — *' wrote 
verses at eight years old or earlier. . . . The Greeks were 
my demigods, and haunted me out of Pope's Homer until I 
dreamt more of Agamemnon than of Moses the black pony." 
She could read Homer in the original at eight years old. 
When she was eleven or twelve she wrote an epic in four 
books called The Battle of Marathon. Her father, proud of 
her talent, had fifty copies printed in 1820.^ To an accident 

1 Cf. p. 61. 

2 Only five of these copies are extant. The poem was reprinted in 1891. 



INTRODUCTION xi 

with which she met while saddling her pony when a girl of 
fifteen is to be attributed the poor health and spinal weak- 
ness from which she afterwards suffered for so many years. 

Aft Essay on Afind, ivith Other Foe??is was published in 
1826. The didactic poem in two books that gives its title 
to the volume is inspired by Pope; many of the shorter 
pieces were written when she was thirteen. Writing about 
it to a friend in 1843, she characterizes it as "didactic 
pedantry," says that its circulation of its own accord has 
been very limited, and that it is her private wish that nothing 
should be said of it in any account of her and her work. 
In 1828 she lost her mother. The family lived on at Hope 
End until 1832, when the place was sold ; they then removed 
to Sidmouth in Devonshire, where they resided till 1835, and 
where Elizabeth Barrett began to make poetry the serious 
pursuit of her life. She worked at her translation of the 
Pro7netheus Bound of y^schylus, which, with a few shorter 
poems, was published anonymously in 1833. Later in life 
she told how the Prometheus was written in twelve days, 
" and should have been thrown into the fire afterwards — 
the only means of giving it a little warmth." 

In 1835 ^^ Barretts took up their residence in London. 
Elizabeth's health broke down entirely, and until her mar- 
riage with Robert Browning in 1846 she led the life of a 
confirmed invalid, leaving her room and her house only on 
rare occasions and at long intervals. She continued through- 
out those ten years to compose verse, and in the earlier part 
of the time contributed poems to magazines like the New 
Mofithly and Fmde?i's Tableaux. The latter was edited by 
Miss Mary Russell Mitford (1787-1855), between whom and 
Elizabeth Barrett there sprang up a lifelong friendship.^ 

1 Cf . A Literary Friendship, by Elizabeth Lee, Cornhill Magazine, January, 



xii INTRODUCTION 



From Miss Mitford's letters we learn much concerning the 
poetess's life in London. It was in 1836 that Miss Mitford 
first met her, and she thus describes her : " She is a delight- 
ful young creature, shy, timid, and modest. Nothing but her 
desire to see me got her out at all. . . . She is so sweet and 
gentle, and so pretty, that one looks at her as if she were 
some bright flower. . . . Everybody who then saw her said 
the same." She goes on to describe Miss Barrett's personal 
appearance at that time. We learn that she possessed a 
slight, delicate figure, with a shower of dark curls falling on 
either side of a most expressive face ; large, tender eyes 
richly fringed by dark eyelashes ; a smile like a sunbeam, 
and a look of youthfulness that belied her thirty years of 
life. Miss Barrett met also at this time Wordsworth and 
Walter Savage Landor. In 1838 she published a fresh 
volume of verse. The Seraphifn and Other Poems. It was 
the first time that her name had appeared on a title-page ; 
her former publications had all been anonymous. The book 
was fairly well received by the public and the critics, but no 
second edition was needed. A quarterly reviewer, however, 
writing in 1840, included Miss Barrett in a list of modern 
English poetesses. The only poem in the volume to which 
time has given a place among Miss Barrett's most popular 
productions is Cowper's Grave. Her aim in sending forth 
the volume to the world is sufBciently told in the closing 
passage of the preface : " I offer to the public, for the first 
time in my own name, these poems, which were not written 
because there is a public, but because they were thought 
and felt. ... I assume no power of art except that power 
of love towards it, which has remained with me from my 
childhood until now. In the power of such a love, and in 
the event of my life being prolonged, I would fain hope to 
write hereafter better verses ; but I never can feel more 



H I 



INTRODUCTION xiii 

intensely than at this moment — nor can it be needful that 
any should — the sublime uses of poetry and the solemn 
responsibilities of the poet." 

Acting under her physician's advice, Miss Barrett, in the 
summer of that year, went to Torquay, Devonshire, in the 
hope that the warmer climate might do something towards 
restoring her health. She was accompanied by her brother 
Edward, who was deeply attached to her. In July, 1840, 
he was drowned while boating in Babbicombe Bay off Tor- 
quay. The tragedy overshadowed the whole of his sister's 
life. She remained in Devonshire until the September of 
the following year, when she returned to her father's house 
to lead there the life of a confirmed invalid. One joy was 
her dog Flush, a present from Miss Mitford. " Flush is my 
constant companion, my friend, my amusement, lying with 
his head on one page of my folio while I read the other." 
In a poem entitled To Flush, my Dog, his mistress thus 
describes him : 

Like a lady's ringlets brown, 
Flow thy silken ears adown 

Either side demurely 
Of thy silver-suited breast 
Shining out from all the rest 

Of thy body purely. 

Darkly brown thy body is, 
Till the sunshine striking this 

Alchemise its dulness, 
When the sleek curls manifold 
Flash all over into gold 

With a burnished fulness. 

Underneath my stroking hand, 
Startled eyes of hazel bland 
Kindling, growing larger, 



xiv INTRODUCTION 

Up thou leapest with a spring, 
Full of prank and curveting, 
Leaping like a charger. 

But of thee it shall be said. 
This dog watched beside a bed 

Day and night unweary, 
Watched within a curtained room 
Where no sunbeam brake the gloom 

Round the sick and dreary. 

And this dog was satisfied 

If a pale thin hand would glide 

Down his dewlaps sloping, — 
Which he pushed his nose within, 
After, — platforming his chin 

On the palm left open. 

Despite the state of her health Miss Barrett saw a few 
intimate friends and did much literary work. She contrib- 
uted a series of papers on the Greek Christian poets, and 
some notes on English poets to the Athe?icEum in 1842, 
which prove wide reading and a fine critical instinct. The 
year 1844 saw the publication of a new collection of Poems. 
It was in two volumes and dedicated to her father. The 
longest of the poems is the Drama of Exile, in which she 
deals with the subject of the Fall from a woman's point of 
view. Again the spirit in which she sent forth her produc- 
tions to the world is best expressed in her own words in the 
preface : " Poetry has been as serious a thing to me as life 
itself, and life has been a very serious thing : there has been 
no playing at skittles for me in either. I never mistook 
pleasure for the final cause of poetry ; nor leisure for the 
hour of the poet. I have done my work, so far, as work, — 
not as mere hand and head work, apart from the personal 
being, — but as the completed expression of that being to 



Tj 



INTRODUCTION XV 

vhich I could attain, — and as work I offer it to the public, — 
eeling its shortcomings more deeply than any of my readers, 
)ecause measured from the height of my aspiration, — but 
eeling also that the reverence and sincerity with which the 
vork was done should give it some protection with the 
everent and sincere." 

In his volumes of 1842 Tennyson had published the best 
)f his earlier work ; by 1844 Browning had issued Paracelsus^ 
Sordello, six of the Bells and Pomegranates series, including 
Pippa Passes, the Dra77iatic Lyrics, and the tragedy of A Blot 
m the ^Scutcheon. So Miss Barrett's work sought a place 
imong worthy compeers. It won high praise from the 
eviewers : "The critics have been good to me," she writes 
o a friend. She received pleasant letters from Harriet 
Martineau, Mrs. Jameson, and also from Robert Browning. 
' I had a letter from Browning the poet last night, which 
hrew me into ecstasies — Browning, the author of Paracel- 
nisy This was the real beginning of her acquaintance with 
Browning, the man, although she had long known him and 
lad always intensely admired him in his work. In a letter 
A'ritten in April, 1843, she expresses her sorrow for an 
id verse review of Browning's Blot on the ^Scutcheon, and in 
Lady Geraldine^s Courtship — a poem of her own first pub- 
ished in the 1844 volumes — occur the lines: 

3r from Browning some " Pomegranate," which, if cut deep down the 

middle, 
•Ihows a heart within blood-tinctured, of a veined humanity. 

The two poets continued to correspond, and in May, 1845, 

hn Kenyon, Miss Barrett's cousin, and Robert Browning's 

ind, took Browning to see her. The visit was repeated 

id very soon the poet's friendship developed into love, and 

asked her to be his wife. Miss Barrett fully returned 



xvi INTRODUCTION 

the love offered to her, but her feeble health — she nevei 
expected to be able to walk about again — naturally made 
her hesitate to lay the burden of an invalid wife on the mar 
she loved. Her feelings during this period of stress are 
recorded in the Sonnets frojn the Portuguese^ and in a little 
group of poems ^ which I have included in my selections 
because they help to illustrate one of the most beautiful real 
love stories the world has to show us. But another obstacle, 
in some ways equally serious, lay in the lovers' path to happi- 
ness. Mr. Barrett had the strongest possible objection to any 
of his children getting married, so strong, indeed, that they all 
knew it was worse than useless to ask his consent. How, at 
length, the sincerity and great-heartedness of her poet lover 
overcame her scruples may be read in detail in The Love- 
Letters of Robert Browning a7id Elizabeth Barrett Barrett^ 
184^-1846, published by Messrs. Smith, Elder & Co. in 
1899. Those letters stand as the utterances of two great 
geniuses who are at the same time two complete and genuine 
human beings and whose married life proved the reality of 
their mutual feeling. Suffice it to say here that on Septem- 
ber 12, 1846, they were married in Marylebone Church, 
London, and a week after the pair left for Italy, which was 
henceforth to be their home. They settled for the winter at 
Pisa. Mrs. Browning has herself confessed all the happiness 
the change brought her : 

The face of all the world is changed, I think, 
Since first I heard the footsteps of thy soul 
Move still, oh, still, beside me, as they stole 
Betwixt me and the dreadful outer brink 
Of obvious death, where I, who thought to sink, 
Was caught up into love, and taught the whole 
Of life in a new rhythm. 

1 Privately printed in 1847, and first issued to the pubHc in the collected poems 
published in two volumes in 1850. 2 cf. pp. no- 116. 



INTRODUCTION xvii 

Robert Browning's side of the story may also be traced 
in his poems. In By the Fireside (1855) ^^ gives what 
might well be an account of his love and courtship. He 
imagines himself a happy husband sitting one evening by 
the fireside, watching his wife. 

You mutely sit 
Musing by firelight, that great brow 

And the spirit-small hand propping it 
Yonder, my heart knows how ! 

And he goes over with her the path that led to their great 
mutual happiness. Another poem, written the same year, One 
Word More, and inscribed to E. B. B., has for its theme that 

God be thanked, the meanest of his creatures 
Boasts two soul-sides, one to face the world with, 
One to show a woman when he loves her ! 

And as final poetical testimony we have the beautiful address 
to his dead wife at the end of the first book of The Rinsr 
and the Book (1868-1869), beginning 

O lyric love, half angel and half bird, 

and the last lines of the whole poem, in which he refers to 
the tablet on the walls of Casa Guidi. 

No longer "faint and blind," Mrs. Browning's nature ex- 
panded in the sunshine of her husband's great and abiding 
love. Her marriage, she declared, "proved the possibility 
of book-making creatures living happily together." In the 
spring of 1847 the Brownings went to Florence, the Italian 
city most closely associated with their names, and there in 
the Casa Guidi, near the Pitti Palace, they resided, with a few 
brief visits to England, until Mrs. Browning's death. To 
crown her happiness a son was born to her in March, 1849. 

Several visitors to the Casa Guidi have given us accounts 
of the life led there by its inmates. Mrs. Ogilvy, author 



xviii INTRODUCTION 

of Highla7id Minstrelsy^ relates her impressions thus : " On 
reaching Florence from Rome, June, 1848, we at once 
called at Casa Guidi. Robert Browning was playing with 
all his heart and soul on a grand piano. He sprang up, 
striding forward with outstretched hand. His wife was 
curled up in a corner of a sofa in the middle of the large 
dim sala hung with old brown tapestry and ancient pictures. 
With her profuse feathery curls half hiding her small face, 
and her large, soft, pleading eyes, she always reminded me 
of a King Charles spaniel. Something unutterably pathetic 
looked out of those soft eyes. Light was not in favor with 
Mrs. Browning. She habitually sat in dark rooms, and was 
so little out of doors that her accuracy of observation was 
all the more remarkable. . . . She was intense rather than 
excitable, and she took life too seriously for her own happi- 
ness. . . . Her letters were written in minute scratches no 
thicker than the hairs on a daisy stalk, on tiny note sheets, 
folded sometimes into tiny envelopes, the whole forming 
apparently a doll's epistle. But if the writing was thin, the 
thoughts and feelings were stout and strong," 

Mr. W. W. Story, writing in 1849 ^^ J- ^- Lowell from 
Rome, where the Brownings were then staying, says: ^'Mrs. 
Browning used to sit buried up in a large easy chair, lister 
and talking very quietly and pleasantly, with nothing of thdt 
peculiarity which one would expect from reading her poems. 
Her eyes are small, her mouth large, she wears a cap and long 
curls. Very unaffected and pleasant and simple-hearted is 
she, and Browning says 'her poems are the least good part 
of her.' " 

In 1850 Mrs. Browning published in two volumes nearly 
all the poems that had appeared in 1838 and 1844, with a 
few new ones, and the Sonnets from the Portuguese^ written 
during the days of courtship and privately printed in 1847, 



INTRODUCTION xix 

On Wordsworth's death, which occurred in April, 1850, the 
Atheficeum strongly recommended that Elizabeth Barrett 
Browning should succeed him in the office of laureate, 
declaring that no living poet of either sex could prefer a 
higher claim than Mrs. Elizabeth Barrett Browning. In 
writing to Miss Mitford about this time, she says : 

"A^for the laureateship, it won't be given to me, be sure, 
though the suggestion has gone the round of the English 
newspapers — Galignaiii and all — and notwithstanding that 
most kind and flattering recommendation of the Athenmim. 
... I think Leigh Hunt should have the laureateship. 
He has condescended to wish for it, and has * worn his sing- 
ing clothes ' longer than most of his contemporaries, deserv- 
ing the price of long as well as noble service. ... In a 
sense Tennyson is worthier of it than Leigh Hunt ; only 
Tennyson can wait — that is the single difference." 

As all the world knows, Tennyson was appointed, and it 
seems strange that so fine a critic as Mrs. Browning should 
place seniority in years as a special qualification for the office. 
Casa Guidi Windoivs, a poem on contemporary Italian poli- 
tics, appeared in 185 1. With the greatest warmth and enthu- 
siasm Mrs. Browning espoused the cause of Italian freedom, 
and in so doing produced of its kind a distinctly fine poem ; 
but it did not attract much notice, and the parts now most 
relished are not the political disquisitions and tirades but the 
descriptions of Florence and its treasures and its heroes.^ 

The Brownings were in Paris at the time of the coup d'etat, 
December 2, 1851. In Mrs. Browning's eyes Louis Napo- 
leon was a great hero ; she held him in the highest estima- 
tion, approved his actions, and honored the man. It was 
doubtless his intervention in the cause of Italy that specially 
roused her admiration, and she expresses it with all the 
ardor of which her passionate nature was capable in the poem 



XX INTRODUCTION 

Napolcoji III ifi Italy, published in i860. She praises that 
Napoleon who "leaving far behind the purple throng of vulgar 

monarchs," 

Tread'st higher in thy deed 

Than stair of throne can lead, 

To help in the hour of wrong 

The broken hearts of nations to be strong. 

Courage, courage ! happy is he. 
Of whom (himself among the dead 
And silent) this word shall be said : 
— That he might have had the world with him, 
But chose to side with suffering men, 
And had the world against him when 
He came to deliver Italy. 
Emperor 
Evermore. 

There is no need in this place to defend or blame Mrs. 
Browning's attitude. We agree with her latest critic, Mr. 
Henry James, in deploring the fact that her interest in the 
cause of Italy lowered, as it were, her inspiration and her 
poetic pitch ; thus the poems of which it is the main topic 
stand lower than the rest of her achievement. Our views 
of Louis Napoleon are undoubtedly both saner and juster 
than hers ; but a person's enthusiasms, misplaced or other- 
wise, are part of his life, and no sketch of Mrs. Browning, 
however brief and modest in aim, would be adequate without 
some reference to this matter. Her sympathy with all who 
suffered from oppression, from factory children upwards, 
was intensely acute, and thus any who attempted to help the 
downtrodden easily won her regard and admiration. 

Towards the end of 1852 the Brownings returned to their 
Florence home. Aurora leigh was published in 1856. It 
had occupied Mrs. Browning for several years, and deservedly 
raised her poetical reputation still higher. It was well 



INTRODUCTION xxi 

received, and three editions were called for within a few 
months. She herself regarded it as her most mature work, 
the one into which entered her highest convictions upon 
life and art. In the early fifties, too, began her interest in 
spiritualism. The pseudo-science made a powerful appeal 
to her temperament. She was quite ready to put faith in 
spiritualistic manifestations, and welcomed any belief that 
rested on the possibility of communication with the world 
beyond the grave. Her husband, however, as is well known, 
was a thorough skeptic in all such matters. 

In i860 appeared Poems before Congress^ the last volume 
published in her lifetime. It contains only eight poems. 
All — with the exception of one on the subject of slavery in 
America — deal with Italian politics and breathe her faith 
in Napoleon Ill's sincerity. Her strictures on England's 
attitude of non-intervention naturally prevented a very good 
reception of the little book in that country, but despite its 
general bias, it holds between its covers some fine and 
genuine poetry. 

For some time now Mrs. Browning's strength had been fail- 
ing, and frequent references are made to illness in her letters 
for the years 1859-1861. She died at Florence, June 29, 
1861, and was buried there in the Protestant cemetery. 
The sarcophagus in which her remains lie was designed 
by Lord Leighton. The municipality of Florence placed a 
tablet on the walls of Casa Guidi with the following inscrip- 
tion from the pen of the poet Tommaseo : 



Here lived and died Elizabeth Barrett Browning, 
who in her woman's heart reconciled the science of 
learning with the spirit of poetry and made of her 
verse a golden ring between Italy and England. 
Grateful Florence places this tablet. 1861. 



xxii , INTRODUCTION 

To quote Mr. W. W. Story again. In a letter to Charles 
Eliot Norton he describes her death as told to him by Brown- 
ing, and her funeral, which he attended, and then sums up 
her character thus: "She is a great loss to literature, to 
Italy, and to the world — the greatest poet among women. 
What energy and fire there was in that little frame ; what 
burning words were winged by her pen; with what glorious 
courage she attacked error, however strongly entrenched in 
custom ; how bravely she stood by her principles ! Never 
did I see any one whose brow the world hurried and crowded 
so to crown, who had so little vanity and so much pure 
humility. Praise gratified her when just — blame when 
unjust scarcely annoyed her. She could afford to let her 
work plead for itself. Ready to accept criticism, she never 
feared it, but defended herself with spirit when unjustly 
attacked. For public opinion she cared not a straw, and 
could not bear to be looked on as a lion. Her faiths were 
rooted in the center of her being." 

A volume entitled Last Pocuis was published in 1862; a 
few of them, notably the fine poem entitled A Musical Listni- 
ment, had already appeared in periodicals. 

It gives the writer of this little Introduction, as an English- 
woman, great pleasure to record how much Mrs. Browning's 
poetry has always been appreciated in America. As early 
as 1842 we find a Boston editor asking her to contribute to 
his magazine. Laudatory notices of and extracts from her 
poems filled American periodicals. " I confess to a good 
deal of pleasure from these American courtesies," she writes ; 
and again, " I confess I feel very much pleased at the kind 
spirit — the spirit of eager kindness indeed — with which 
the Americans receive my poetry." Aurora Leigh was most 
successful in America. " The publisher [she tells us] is 
said to have shed tears over the proofs, and the critics 



INTRODUCTION xxiii 

congratulate me on having worked myself clear of all my affec- 
tations and mannerisms." Referring to the bad reception 
accorded by English reviewers to her Poems before Cofigress 
in i860, she says: "For the rest, being turned out of the 
Old World, I fall on my feet in the New World, where peo- 
ple have been generous, and even publishers turned liberal. 
Think of my having an offer (on the ground of that book^) 
from a periodical in New York of a hundred dollars for 
every single poem, though as short as a sonnet — that is, 
for its merely passing through their pages on the road to 
the publishers proper." 

II 

Wordsworth is at one with Milton in fixing upon passion as of the essence of 
poetry, Avhich he in one place defines as " the spontaneous overflow of powerful 
feelings."' It does not matter for poetry what the emotion is that overflows; it 
may be love or hate, pity or fear, awe or indignation, joy or sorrow ; what mat- 
ters for poetry is that some passion there should be, for some particular object, 
and that it should be sincerely and deeply felt. . . . Poetry requires a manner 
of viewing things which is not that of the average man, but is individual to the 
poet ; it requires, in a word, genius. 

H. C. Beeching (on the Study of Poclry). 

In studying the work of any poet we should perhaps ask 
ourselves first what qualities we shall be likely to find in it. 
In Mrs. Browning's poetry, wherever we take it, we find the 
personal note, the original point of view, — here especially 
that of the woman, — and an absolute sincerity. True passion, 
likewise genuine emotion, is everywhere present. Her 
purely lyrical utterances, like the Sonnets from the Portu- 
guese and such poems as The Sleep, Coivper^s Grave, A Musi- 
cal Instrument, The Cry of the Children — to name a few 
of the chief — form perhaps her greatest achievement. As 

1 Poems before Congress. The volume contained A Curse for a Nation, 
which points out the wickedness of slaveholding. 



xxiv INTRODUCTION 

a lyrist she may be compared with Tennyson and Campbell. 
But learned poems — if we may so call them — like JVi/!e of 
Cyprus and A Vision of Poets, novel-poems like Lady Ger- 
aldines Courtship and Aurora Leigh, and romantic ballad 
poems like the Rhy77ie of the Duchess May, are all in their 
kind of the very greatest excellence. In addition to fire 
and passion Mrs. Browning possessed a feeling for romance, 
an ingenious fancy, a vivid imagination, and a peculiar ten- 
derness. Those qualities place her beside the highest in 
her craft. That she is a rare example of the union of a 
strong lyrical impulse and the deepest feeling with the high- 
est and broadest culture — she is sometimes characterized 
as a learned poetess — constitutes perhaps her chief claim 
to originality. With her, as with all great lyrical poets, the 
heart was her source of inspiration. 

Women who have gained a place among the great immor- 
tals as poets are few. With Sappho and Elizabeth Barrett 
Browning the tale seems ended. Excellent as is the work of 
her European contemporaries, Mme. Desbordes-Valmore 
(1786-1859) in France, Annette Droste-Hiilshoff (1797- 
1S4S) in Germany, and Annie Vivante in Italy, that of 
Elizabeth Barrett Browning greatly surpasses theirs. Women 
so far have greatly succeeded in creative work^nly in the 
realms of fiction. There are indications that in the future 
they may become great dramatists, but none that they will 
become great lyric poets. At a first glance it would seem 
that women's rare capacity for emotion and their custom of 
drawing on their own personal experience rather than on a 
wide knowledge of life mark them out as the great lyrical 
poets of humanity. In the Sonnets from the Portuguese Mrs. 
Browning has achieved one of the great lyrics of the world. 
It fulfills all the necessary conditions of pure poetry : it is 
not only the expression of the love of an individual woman 



INTKOUUCTION XXV 

but also the expression for all time of every high-souled 
woman's love, sincere, unselfish, passionate, enduring for- 
ever. But this is the outcome of genius, and genius knows 
no distinction of sex. Yet if not in this poem, which stands 
apart, in the others we may and should look for qualities 
— secondary it may be to the genius held in common with 
all great poets of either sex and of every age — specially 
to be found in woman's work. For 

Woman is not undevelopt man 
But diverse, 

and Mrs. Browning is no exception. While she possesses 
some of the qualities of the greatest men, she possesses others 
that are to be found only in women. Her sympathy with 
the troubles and miseries and difficulties that beset women 
just because they are women, her insight into the hearts of 
women, her knowledge at first hand of all that peculiarly 
characterizes women, is of the highest value for her poetry 
because it assures to it qualities that give it unique beauty 
and meaning. Mrs. Browning gives the sanest answers to 
all questions that chiefly concern woman, such as her rela- 
tions to men and to her own sex, and her conception of 
and relatians to her art. Her views about women are best 
learned from Awora Leigh, in which the main thought is 
that if women put the artist before the woman they, like 
Aurora, run the risk of suffering shipwreck. 

But it is perhaps better for young students to approach 
Mrs. Browning's work on more general grounds. She came 
strongly under the influence of the two great poets of her 
time. Her Vision of Poets ^ was possibly inspired to some 
degree by Tennyson's Dream of Fair Wof?ien and 7wo 
Voices ; Lady Gcralditic' s Courtship ^ belongs to the same 

1 Cf. p. 124. 2 cf. p. 15. 



xxvi INTRODUCTION 

class of poems as Locksley Hall^ and is written in the same 
meter. After her marriage her work was strongly influenced 
by that of Robert Browning, and there are lines and pas- 
sages in Aurora Leigh that might well have been composed 
by him. Yet we know that neither saw the work of the 
other until it was completed. The process of assimilation 
goes on unconsciously, and in this case, as always, it was a 
great gain. Mrs. Browning reflects her age and voices aloud 
the things that were agitating more thoughtful minds at the 
period as insistently as Tennyson did, and more insistently, 
perhaps, than Browning did. Aurora Leigh, for example, is 
instinct with passionate feeling for the realities of modern 
life, and in it she paints the sharp contrasts, the blinding 
lights and dark shadows, the unrest, the inquiring spirit that 
are its characteristics. In many ways Browning was the 
greatest of the three, and not least in that the problems of 
the human heart and mind treated by him are not of an 
age but of all time. 

As a sonnet writer Mrs. Browning ranks with the great- 
est who have used that form, — with Shakespeare, Milton, 
Wordsworth, and Rossetti. Whatever the defects of her 
verse generally, — its lack of form and of a sense of melody, 
— in her sonnets all is perfection. It has been well said 
that she never found the sonnet too circumscribed for her ; 
she moved " in it as freely as a fish in a deep pool, as a bird 
in the windless air." 

Her appreciation of the beauty of external nature is well 
expressed in her poems ; she loved fine scenery, and trees 
and flowers, and horses and dogs and birds. Scarcely any 
better description of an infant child exists in English poetry 
than that of Marian's little boy in Aurora Leigh. Despite 
the strained rhymes, the lack of finish, the neglect of form 
and melody, her verse contains phrases that haunt us as 



INTRODUCTION xxvil 

only the purest poetry has the power to do. Such are, to 
take a few at random : 

And Chaucer, with his infantine 
Familiar clasp of things divine ; 
That mark upon his lip is wine. 

But the child's sob in the silence curses deeper 
Than the strong man in his wrath. 

Those never loved 
Who dream that they loved once. 

Our Euripides, the human — 

With his droppings of warm tears ; 
And his touches of things common, 

Till they rose to touch the spheres ! 

God strikes a silence through you all, 
And giveth his beloved — sleep. 

O poets ! from a maniac's tongue was poured the deathless singing! 

It should always be remembered that no critic, however 
able, can argue men into a love of poetry. We come to 
poetry, as a modern critic well says, "upon instinct." The 
appreciation of poetry (said another) is a matter of percep- 
tion, not of argument. All the critic can do for us is to 
give his impression of the poet's work, his judgment of it 
by certain standards ; he may also introduce to our notice 
poetry which, without his guidance, we might have neglected. 
The poets are always accessible, and each will choose from 
what they have to offer according to his taste and tempera- 
ment. But it is well that the critic should occasionally 
remind us of the solace and delight eternally afforded by 
fine poetry. 



xxviii CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE 






F= c 



w 



►J 






^^ >>^^ g !-< -'^ ^'^ M-5 <«ii o s ^ o\:-cS -c^go; 

00 00 00 CC 00 00 t>0 00 00 00 OC CO CO 00 00 00 00 00 



< "s 

-ri O . "^ 0) 



:h > 



>- 



< 






1—1 ® .2i^ ■"^m'u 






K 

,__,vO Tftr)t>,oO -"l-O (sro 

"-"-lOD 0000000000 0000 OOCO 



a 
o 






M 



PQ CQ H Oh 



TS 





<U 


> 


T) 




> 







C 


s 


.2 


ni 






1) 






^^ 



a, 



dj ^- 



9 ? 


Tl 


J ^ 




C bo 


ce 


■" c 


h 








2 


2^0 


in 


i"S 




o£ 


H 


UlxO 


00 


CO t»5 


CO 


CO 00 


00 



CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE 



XXIX 



ti^ 






"coa 




>>.s 


» 




a> 


c^ 


O vD 




c « 


u 


■* 


r! 


U 3 


33 


00 




Hlii 





1 




N ro 


■<r 


Tf 




■^ ■<^ 


CO 


oo 




00 oo 



»] w . 

^ u 

C 0-- 

c 0) -^ 

O 5 3J rt 

C C rt n! 



a-- 
U 



3 






. IU.Q 

aj 2 



o 
•;? ~ ^ lu <" rt c5 '"^ ;^ 



00 00 



00 00 <» 



> g .aj 

>-■(_) >- 

1) 0) 
S "-J 
O ^ 

2 3 

on 



u 



M 3 






rC/3 £■*:? 






' n! (U oj 

:Q0H 



(4 



O 



Pi 



-^ 

O OJ 
h4 



S ?' c 
'J S w ^ 

1) o "^ rt 

Q-5 Q 

. in 



u 



aj-C 

<u o 
in ■" 

s >• 



E 






5^2 



u; 



1^ ij 



c a > '^ 



^ ° t! 

13 c >- o 

0) COM 

"T^ t^ in £ 

- M.S 
O TS 1- 

C "1 

.2 ^"o 






<u 



oj i; iS iJ '^ tJ 



m bO 



E^W 


^ 'C 


0) 


o o< 




K SJ 


E '^ 


r^^ 


3 cfl 


oj.g W) 


C O 


W o ^ ■*-• 

E^On° 


O M 


TJ-C 


-■^:§2 




.is <u 


" w c <u "S 

^ E -'C c- 
i; in t. b 

°-o.bJ2 § 


u <u 


go 


o 


pLnfc^iC/J 


N 


T^ invo f-« 


■^ 


1- ^ -t 'T 



3 



V3 Kn 








OPh 


in 


> .. 


? 


o ■" 


O 


o 


■^ 


•S « 


!h 


tj 


'3 


w C 






u 



00 00 CO 00 



SELECTED POEMS OF 
ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING 

THE SLEEP 

" He giveth His beloved sleep." — Psalm cxxvii. 2. 
I 

Of all the thoughts of God that are 
Borne inward unto souls afar, 
Along the Psalmist's music deep, 
Now tell me if that any is, 

For gift or grace, surpassing this — 5 

" He giveth His beloved, sleep " ? 

II 

What would we give to our beloved ? 
The hero's heart, to be unmoved. 
The poet's star-tuned harp, to sweep, 
The patriot's voice, to teach and rouse, 10 

The monarch's crown to light the brows ? 
" He giveth His beloved, sleep." 

Ill 

What do we give to our beloved? 
A little faith, all undisproved, 

A little dust, to overweep, 15 

And bitter memories, to make 
The whole earth blasted for our sake ? 
" He giveth His beloved, sleep." 



SELECTED POEMS 



IV 



" Sleep soft, beloved ! " we sometimes say, 
But have no tune to charm away 
Sad dreams that through the eyelids creep 
But never doleful dream again 
Shall break the happy slumber, when 
*' He giveth His beloved, sleep." 



25 O earth, so full of dreary noises ! 

O men, with wailing in your voices ! 
O delved gold, the wallers heap ! 

strife, O curse, that o'er it fall ! 
God makes a silence through you all, 

30 And "giveth His beloved, sleep." 

VI 

His dews drop mutely on the hill. 
His cloud above it saileth still. 
Though on its slope men sow and reap. 
More softly than the dew is shed, 
35 Or cloud is floated overhead, 

" He giveth His beloved, sleep." 

VII 

Yea, men may wonder while they scan 
A living, thinking, feeling man. 
Confirmed, in such a rest to keep ; 
40 But angels say — and through the word 

1 think their happy smile is heaj'd — 

" He giveth His beloved, sleep." 



COWPER'S GRAVE 3 

VIII 

For me, my heart that erst did go 
Most like a tired child at a show, 
That sees through tears the jugglers leap, — 45 

Would now its wearied vision close, 
Would childlike on His love repose. 
Who "giveth His beloved, sleep!" 

IX 

And, friends, dear friends, — when it shall be 
That this low breath is gone from me, 50 

And round my bier ye come to weep, 
Let one, most loving of you all, 
Say, " Not a tear must o'er her fall — 
He giveth His beloved, sleep." 

COWPER'S GRAVE 
I 

It is a place where poets crowned may feel the heart's 

decaying, — 
It is a place where happy saints may weep amid their praying: 
Yet let the grief and humbleness, as low as silence, languish ! 
Earth surely now may give her calm to whom she gave her 

anguish. 

II 

O poets ! from a maniac's tongue was poured the deathless 5 

singing ! 
O Christians ! at your cross of hope a hopeless hand was 

clinging ! 
O men ! this man, in brotherhood, your weary paths beguiling. 
Groaned inly while he taught you peace, and died while ye 

were smiling ! 



4 SELECTED POEMS 

III 

And now, what time ye all may read through dimming tears 

his story, 
lo How discord on the music fell, and darkness on the glory ; 
And how, when, one by one, sweet sounds and wandering 

lights departed, 
He wore no less a loving face because so broken-hearted ; 

IV 

He shall be strong to sanctify the poet's high vocation. 
And bow the meekest Christian down in meeker adora- 
tion : 
IS Nor ever shall he be, in praise, by wise or good forsaken ; 
Named softly, as the household name of one whom God hath 
taken. 

v 

With quiet sadness and no gloom, I learn to think upon 

him, 
With meekness, that is gratefulness to God whose heaven 

hath won him — 
Who suffered once the madness-cloud, to His own love to 

blind him ; 
20 But gently led the blind along where breath and bird could 

find him ; 

VI 

And wrought within his shattered brain such quick poetic 
senses, 

As hills have language for, and stars, harmonious influ- 
ences ! 

The pulse of dew upon the grass kept his within its num- 
ber ; 

And silent shadows from the trees refreshed him like a 
slumber. 



COWPER'S GRAVE 5 

VII 

Wild timid hares were drawn from woods to share his home- 25 

caresses, 
Uplooking to his human eyes with sylvan tendernesses : 
The very world, by God's constraint, from falsehood's ways 

removing, 
Its women and its men became beside him, true and loving. 

VIII 

But while in blindness he remained unconscious of that 

guiding, 
And things provided came without the sweet sense of pro- 30 

viding. 
He testified this solemn truth, though frenzy desolated — 
Nor man, nor nature satisfy, whom only God created ! 

IX 

Like a sick child that knoweth not his mother while she 

blesses 
And drops upon his burning brow the coolness of her kisses ; 
That turns his fevered eyes around — " My mother ! where 's 35 

my mother ? " — 
As if such tender words and looks could come from any 

other ! — 

X 

The fever gone, with leaps of heart, he sees her bending 

o'er him ; 
Her face all pale from watchful love, the unweary love she 

bore him ! — 
Thus woke the poet from the dream, his life's long fever 

gave him, 
Beneath those deep pathetic Eyes, which closed in death, 4° 

to save him ! 



6 SELECTED POEMS 

XI 

Thus? oh, not tJius I no type of earth could image that 

awaking, 
Wherein he scarcely heard the chant of seraphs, round him 

breaking. 
Or felt the new immortal throb of soul from body parted ; 
But felt those eyes alone, and knew, ^^ Afy Saviour! 7wt 

deserted ! " 

XII 

45 Deserted! who hath dreamt that when the cross in dark- 
ness rested, 

Upon the Victim's hidden face, no love was manifested ? 

What frantic hands outstretched have e'er the atoning drops 
averted. 

What tears have washed them from the soul, that 07ie should 
be deserted ? 

XIII 

Deserted ! God could separate from His own essence rather : 
50 And Adam's sins hm'e swept between the righteous Son and 

Father ; 
Yea, once, Immanuel's orphaned cry, His universe hath 

shaken — 
It went up single, echoless, " My God, I am forsaken ! " 

XIV 

It went up from the Holy's lips amid His lost creation. 
That, of the lost, no son should use those words of desola- 
tion ; 
55 That earth's worst frenzies, marring hope, should mar not 
hope's fruition. 
And I, on Cowper's grave, should see his rapture, in a 
vision ! 



A SEA-SIDE WALK 
A SEA-SIDE WALK 

; 

1 

We walked beside the sea, 
After a day which perished silently 
Of its own glory — like the Princess weird 
Who, combating the Genius, scorched and seared, 
Uttered with burning breath, " Ho ! victory ! " 
And sank adown, an heap of ashes pale ; 

So runs the Arab tale. 

II 

The sky above us showed 
An universal and unmoving cloud, 
On which, the cliffs permitted us to see 
Only the outline of their majesty, 
As master-minds, when gazed at by the crowd ! 
And, shining with a gloom, the water grey 

Swang in its moon-taught way. 

Ill 

Nor moon nor stars were out. 
They did not dare to tread so soon about. 
Though trembling, in the footsteps of the sun. 
The light was neither night's nor day's, but one 
Which, life-like, had a beauty in its doubt ; 
And Silence's impassioned breathings round 20 

Seemed wandering into sound. 

IV 

O solemn-beating heart 
Of nature ! I have knowledge that thou art 
Bound unto man's by cords he cannot sever — 
And, what time they are slackened by him ever, 25 



15 



8 SELECTED POEMS 

So to attest his own supernal part, 
Still runneth thy vibration fast and strong, 
The slackened cord along. 

V 

For though we never spoke 
30 Of the grey water and the shaded rock, — 

Dark wave and stone unconsciously, were fused 
Into the plaintive speaking that we used, 
Of absent friends and memories unforsook ; 
And, had we seen each other's face, we had 
35 Seen haply, each was sad. 



THE SEA-MEW 

{Affectionately inscribed to M. E. //.] 
I 

How joyously the young sea-mew 
Lay dreaming on the waters blue, 
Whereon our little bark had thrown 
A forward shade, the only one, 
(But shadows ever man pursue.) 

IT 

Familiar with the waves and free. 
As if their own white foam were he, 
His heart, upon the heart of ocean. 
Lay learning all its mystic motion, 
And throbbing to the throbbing sea. 

Ill 
And such a brightness in his eye, 
As if the ocean and the sky 



THE SEA-MEW 9 

Within him had lit up and nurst 

A soul, God ^ave him not at first, 

To comprehend their majesty. 15 

IV 

We were not cruel, yet did sunder 

His white wing from the blue waves under, 

And bound it, while his fearless eyes 

Shone up to ours in calm surprise 

As deeming us some ocean wonder ! 20 

V 

We bore our ocean bird unto 

A grassy place, where he might view 

The llowers that curtsey to the bees. 

The waving of the tall green trees, 

The falling of the silver dew. 25 

VI 

But ilowers of earth were pale to him 

Who had seen the rainbow fishes swim ; 

And when earth's dew around him lay, 

He thought of ocean's winged spray, 

And his eye waxed sad and dim. 30 

VII 

The green trees round him only made 

A prison, with their darksome shade : 

And drooped his wing, and mourned he 

For his own boundless glittering sea — 

Albeit he knew not they could fade. 35 

VIII 

Then One her gladsome face did bring, 
Her gentle voice's murmuring, 



40 



10 SELECTED POEMS " 

In ocean's stead his lieart to move, 
And teach him what was human love — 
He thought it a strange mournful thing. 



IX 

He lay down in his grief to die, 
(First looking to the sea-like sky, 
That hath no waves !) because, alas ! 
Our human touch did on him pass, 
45 And with our touch, our agony. 

MY DOVES 

O Weisheit ! Du red'st wie eine Taube ! — Goethe. 

My little doves have left a nest 

Upon an Indian tree, 
Whose leaves fantastic take their rest 
Or motion from the sea : 
5 For, ever there, the sea-winds go 

With sunlit paces, to and fro. 

The tropic liowers looked up to it, 

The tropic stars looked down. 
And there my little doves did sit, 
lo With feathers softly brown, 

And glittering eyes that showed their right 
To general Nature's deep delight. 

And God them taught, at every close 
Of murmuring waves beyond, 
15 And green leaves round, to interpose 

Their coral voices fond ; 
Interpreting that love must be 
The meaning of the earth and sea. 



MV DOVES I 1 

Fit ministers ! (^f living loves, 

Theirs h:vth the calmest fashion ; ao 

Their living voice the likest moves 

To lifeless intonation, 
The lovely monotone of springs 
And winds and such insensate things. 

My little doves were ta'en away 25 

From that glad nest of theirs, 
Across an ocean roiling grey, 

And tempest-clcnided airs. 
My little doves! — -who lately knew 
The sky antl wave, by warmth and blue ! v 

And now, within the city prison, 

In mist ami chillness pent. 
With sudden ui)ward look they listen 

For sounds of j^ast content — 
For lapse of water, swell of breeze, 35 

Or nut-fruit falling from the trees. 

The stir without the glow of passion — 

The triumph of the mart — 
The gold and silver as they clash on 

Man's cold metallic heart — 40 

The roar of wheels, the cry for bread, — 
These only sounds are heard instead. 

Yet still, as on my human hand 

Their fearless heads they lean, 
And almost seem to understand 4s 

What human musings mean — 
(Their eyes, with such a plaintive shine, 
Are fastened upwardly to mine !) 



12 SELECTED POEMS 

Soft falls their chant, as on the nest, 
50 Beneath the sunny zone ; 

For love that stirred it in their breast 

Has not aweary grown, 
And, 'neath the city's shade, can keep 
The well of music clear and deep. 

55 And love that keeps the music, fills 

With pastoral memories : 
All echoings from out the hills. 
All droppings from the skies, 
All flowings from the wave and wind, 
60 Remembered in their chant, I find. 

So teach ye me the wisest part. 
My little doves ! to move 

Along the city-ways, with heart 
Assured by holy love, 
6s And vocal with such songs as own 

A fountain to the world unknown, 

'Twas hard to sing by Babel's stream - 

More hard, in Babel's street ! 
But if the soulless creatures deem 
70 Their music not unmeet 

For sunless walls — let us begin, 
Who wear immortal wings, within ! 

To me, fair memories belong 
Of scenes that used to bless ; 
75 For no regret, but present song, 

And lasting thankfulness ; 
And very soon to break away. 
Like types, in purer things than they. 



LESSONS FROM THE GORSE 13 

I will have hopes that cannot fade, 

For flowers the valley yields : 80 

I will have humble thoughts, instead 

Of silent, dewy fields : 
My spirit and my God shall be 
My seaward hill, my boundless sea ! 



LESSONS FROM THE GORSE 

To win the secret of a weed's plain heart. — Lowell. 



Mountain gorses, ever-golden, 
Cankered not the whole year long ! 
Do ye teach us to be strong, 
Howsoever pricked and holden 

Like your thorny blooms, and so s 

Trodden on by rain and snow, 
Up the hill-side of this life, as bleak as where ye grow ? 

II 
Mountain blossoms, shining blossoms, 
Do ye teach us to be glad 

When no summer can be had, 10 

Blooming in our inward bosoms? 
Ye, whom God preserveth still, 
Set as lights upon a hill. 
Tokens to the wintry earth that Beauty liveth still ! 

Ill 

Mountain gorses, do ye teach us 15 

From that academic chair 
Canopied with azure air, 



14 SELECTED POEMS 

That the wisest word man reaches 
Is the humblest he can speak? 
20 Ye, who live on mountain peak, 

Yet live low along the ground, beside the grasses meek ! 

IV 

Mountain gorses, since Linnaeus 
Knelt beside you on the sod, 
For your beauty thanking God, — 
25 For your teaching, ye should see us 

Bowing in prostration new! 
Whence arisen, — if one or two 
Drops be on our cheeks — O world, they are not tears but 
dew. 



THE POET AND THE BIRD 
A Fable 

I 

Said a people to a poet — " Go out from among us straight- 
way ! 
While we are thinking earthly things, thou singest of 
divine. 
There 's a little fair brown nightingale, who, sitting in the 
gateway. 
Makes fitter music to our ear, than any song of thine ! " 

II 

5 The poet went out weeping — the nightingale ceased chanting: 
" Now, wherefore, O thou nightingale, is all thy sweetness 
done ? " 
" I cannot sing my earthly things, the heavenly poet wanting, 
Whose highest harmony includes the lowest under sun." 



LADY GERALDINE'S COURTSHIP 15 

III 

The poet went out weeping, — and died abroad, bereft 
there — 
The bird flew to his grave and died, amid a thousand 10 
wails : — 
And, when I last came by the place, I swear the music left 
there 
Was only of the poet's song, and not the nightingale's. 



LADY GERALDINE'S COURTSHIP 
A Romance of the Age 

A foet ivrites to /lis friend. Place — A room in Wycombe Hall. Time — 

Late in the evening. 

Dear my friend and fellow-student, I would lean my spirit 

o'er you ; 
Down the purple of this chamber, tears should scarcely run 

at will ! 
I am humbled who was humble ! Friend, — I bow my head 

before you ! 
Y'ou should lead me to my peasants ! — but their faces are 

too still. 

There 's a lady — an earl's daughter ; she is proud and she 5 

is noble ; 
And she treads the crimson carpet, and she breathes the 

perfumed air ; 
And a kingly blood sends glances up her princely eye to 

trouble, 
And the shadow of a monarch's crown, is softened in her 

hair. 



l6 SELECTED POEMS 

She has halls and she has castles, and the resonant steam- 
eagles 
lo Follow far on the directing of her floating dove-like hand — 

With a thundrous vapour trailing, underneath the starry 
vigils, 

So they mark upon the blasted heaven the measure of her 
land. 

There be none of England's daughters, who can show a 

prouder presence ; 
Upon princely suitors suing, she has looked in her disdain : 
IS She was sprung of English nobles, I was born of English 

peasants ; 
What was / that I should love her — save for feeling of the 

pain ? 

I was only a poor poet, made for singing at her casement, 
As the finches or the thrushes, while she thought of other 

things. 
Oh, she walked so high above me, she appeared to my 

abasement, 
20 In her lovely silken murmur, like an angel clad in wings ! 

Many vassals bow before her, as her carriage sweeps their 

door-ways ; 
She has blest their little children, — as a priest or queen 

were she ! 
Oh, too tender or too cruel far, her smile upon the poor was. 
For I thought it was the same smile, which she used to smile 

on me. 

25 She has members in the commons, she has lovers in the 
palace, — 
And of all the fair court-ladies, few have jewels half as fine : 



LADY GERALDINE'S COURTSHIP 17 

Oft the prince has named her beauty, 'twixt the red wine 

and the chalice : 
Oh, and what was /to love her ? my beloved, my Geraldine ! 

Yet I could not choose but love her — I was born to poet- 
uses — 

To love all things set above me, all of good and all of fair ! 30 

Nymphs of old Parnassus mountain, we are wont to call 
the Muses — 

And in silver-footed climbing, poets pass from mount to star. 

And because I was a poet, and because the people praised 

me, 
With their critical deductions for the modern writer's fault ; 
I could sit at rich men's tables, — though the courtesies that 35 

raised me, 
Still suggested clear between us the pale spectrum of the 

salt. 

And they praised me in her presence ; — " Will your book 

appear this summer ? " 
Then returning to each other — " Yes, our plans are for the 

moors ; " 
Then with whisper dropped behind me — " There he is ! the 

latest comer ! 
Oh, she only likes his verses ! what is over, she endures. 40 , 

" Quite low-born ! self-educated ! somewhat gifted though by 

nature, — 
And we make a point of asking him, — of being very kind ; 
You may speak, he does not hear you ; and besides, he 

writes no satire, — 
These new charmers keep their serpents with the antique 

sting resigned." 



l8 SELECTED POEMS 

45 I grew scornfuller, grew colder, as I stood up there among 

them, — 
Till as frost intense will burn you, the cold scorning scorched 

my brow ; 
When a sudden silver speaking, gravely cadenced, over-rung 

them. 
And a sudden silken stirring touched my inner nature 

through, 

I looked upward and beheld her ! With a calm and regnant 

spirit, 
50 Slowly round she swept her eyelids, and said clear before 

them all — 
" Have you such superfluous honour, sir, that, able to 

confer it, 
You will come down, Mr. Bertram, as my guest to Wycombe 

Hall ? " 

Here she paused, — she had been paler at the first word of 

her speaking ; 
But because a silence followed it, blushed scarlet, as for 

shame, 
55 Then, as scorning her own feeling, resumed calmly — "I 

am seeking 
More distinction than these gentlemen think worthy of my 

claim. 

" Ne'ertheless, you see, I seek it — not because I am a 

woman," — 
(Here her smile sprang like a fountain and, so, overflowed 

her mouth) 
" But because my woods in Sussex have some purple shades 

at gloaming, 
60 Which are worthy of a king in state, or poet in his youth. 



LADY GERALDINE'S COURTSHIP 19 

" I invite you, Mr. Bertram, to no scene for worldly 

speeches — 
Sir, I scarce should dare — but only where God asked the 

thrushes first — 
And if you will sing beside them, in the covert of my beeches, 
I will thank you for the woodlands, ... for the human world, 

at worst." 

Then, she smiled around right childly, then, she gazed 65 

around right queenly ; 
And I bowed — I could not answer! Alternated light and 

gloom — 
While as one who quells the lions, with a steady eye serenely. 
She, with level fronting eyelids, passed out stately from the 

room. 

Oh, the blessed woods of Sussex, I can hear them still 

around me. 
With their leafy tide of greenery still rippling up the wind ! 70 
Oh, the cursed woods of Sussex ! where the hunter's arrow 

found me, 
When a fair face and a tender voice had made me mad and 

blind ! 

In that ancient hall of Wycombe thronged the numerous 

guests invited. 
And the lovely London ladies trod the floors with gliding feet; 
And their voices low with fashion, not with feeling, softly 75 

freighted 
All the air about the windows with elastic laughters sweet. 

For at eve the open windows flung their light out on the terrace. 
Which the floating orbs of curtains did with gradual shadow 
sweep ; 



20 SELECTED POEMS 

While the swans upon the river, fed at morning by the 
heiress, 
80 Trembled downward through their snowy wings, at music in 
their sleep. 

And there evermore was music, both of instrument and 
singing, 

Till the finches of the shrubberies grew restless in the 
dark ; 

But the cedars stood up motionless, each in a moonlight- 
ringing. 

And the deer, half in the glimmer, strewed the hollows of 
the park. 

85 And though sometimes she would bind me with her silver- 
corded speeches 

To commix my words and laughter with the converse and 
the jest, — 

Oft I sate apart and, gazing on the river, through the 
beeches. 

Heard, as pure the swans swam down it, her pure voice o'er- 
float the rest. 

In the morning, horn of huntsman, hoof of steed, and laugh 

of rider, 
90 Spread out cheery from the court-yard, till we lost them in 

the hills ; 
While herself and other ladies, and her suitors left beside her, 
Went a-wandering up the gardens, through the laurels and 

abeles. 

Thus, her foot upon the new-mown grass — bareheaded — 

with the flowing 
Of the virginal white vesture, gathered closely to her throat ; 



LADY GERALDINE'S COURTSHIP 21 

With the golden ringlets in her neck, just quickened by her 95 

going, 
And appearing to breathe sun for air, and doubting if to 

float, — 

With a branch of dewy maple, which her right hand held 

above her. 
And which trembled a green shadow in betwixt her and the 

skies, — 
As she turned her face in going, thus, she drew me on to 

love her, 
And to W'Orship the divineness of the smile hid in her eyes. 100 

For her eyes alone smile constantly : her lips have serious 

sweetness. 
And her front is calm — the dimple rarely ripples on her 

cheek : 
But her deep blue eyes smile constantly, — as if they had 

by fitness 
Won the secret of a happy dream, she did not care to speak. 

Thus she drew me the first morning, out across into the 105 

garden : 
And I walked among her noble friends and could not keep 

behind ; 
Spake she unto all and unto me — " Behold, I am the 

warden 
Of the song-birds in these lindens, which are cages to their 

mind. 

" But within this swarded circle, into which the lime-walk 

brings us — 
Whence the beeches, rounded greenly, stand away in rever- no 

ent fear, — 



22 SELECTED POEMS 

I will let no music enter, saving what the fountain sings 

us, 
Which the lilies round the basin may seem pure enough to 

hear. 

" The live air that waves the lilies, waves the slender jet of 

water. 
Like a holy thought sent feebly up from soul of fasting 

saint ! 
115 Whereby lies a marble Silence, sleeping ! (Lough the sculptor 

wrought her) 
.S"^ asleep she is forgetting to say Hush ! — a fancy quaint. 

" Mark how heavy white her eyelids ! not a dream between 

them lingers ; 
And the left hand's index droppeth from the lips upon the 

cheek : 
And the right hand, — with the symbol rose held slack 

within the fingers, — 
120 Has fallen backward in the basin — yet this Silence will not 

speak ! 

" That the essential meaning growing, may exceed the special 

symbol, 
Is the thought, as I conceive it : it applies more high and 

low, — 
Our true noblemen will often, through right nobleness, grow 

humble, 
And assert an inward honour, by denying outward show." 

125 " Nay, your Silence," said I, '' truly, holds her symbol rose 
but slackly. 
Yet she holds it — or would scarcely be a Silence to our 
ken ! 



LADY GERALDINE'S COURTSHIP 23 

And your nobles wear their ermine on the outside, or walk 

blackly 
In the presence of the social law, as most ignoble men. 

" Let the poets dream such dreaming ! Madam, in these 

British islands, 
'Tis the substance that wanes ever, 'tis the symbol that 130 

exceeds : 
Soon we shall have nought but symbol ! and, for statues 

like this Silence, 
Shall accept the rose's marble — in another case, the weed's." 

"Not so quickly," she retorted, — "I confess, where'er you 

go, you 
Find for things, names — shows for actions, and pure gold 

for honour clear ; 
But when all is run to symbol in the Social, I will throw 135 

you 
The world's book, which now reads dryly, and sit down 

with Silence here." 

Half in playfulness she spoke, I thought, and half in indig- 
nation ; 

Friends who listened, laughed her words off, while her 
lovers deemed her fair ; 

A fair woman, flushed with feeling, in her noble-lighted 
station, 

Near the statue's white reposing — and both bathed in sunny 140 
air ! — 

With the trees round, not so distant, but you heard their 

vernal murmur, 
And beheld in light and shadow the leaves in and outward 

move ; 



24 SELECTED POEMS 

And the little fountain leaping toward the sun-heart to be 

warmer, 
And recoiling backward, trembling with the too much light 

above — 

145 'T is a picture for remembrance ! and thus, morning after 

morning, 
Did I follow as she drew me, by the spirit, to her feet — 
Why, her greyhound followed also ! dogs — we both were 

dogs for scorning — 
To be sent back when she pleased it, and her path lay 

through the wheat. 

And thus, morning after morning, spite of oath and spite of 

sorrow, 
150 Did I follow at her drawing, while the week-days passed 

along ; 
Just to feed the swans this noontide, or to see the fawns 

to-morrow, 
Or to teach the hill-side echo some sweet Tuscan in a 

song. 

Ay, and sometimes on the hill-side, while we sate down in 

the gowans, 
With the forest green behind us, and its shadow cast 

before ; 
155 And the river running under ; and across it, from the 

rowans, 
A brown partridge whirring near us, till we felt the air it 

bore, — 

There, obedient to her praying, did I read aloud the poems 
Made by Tuscan flutes, or instruments more various, of our 
own ; 



LADY GERALDINE'S COURTSHIP 25 

Read the pastoral parts of Spenser — or the subtle inter- 

fiowings 
Found in Petrarch's sonnets — here's the book — the leaf 160 

is folded down ! — 

Or at times a modern volume, — Wordsworth's solemn- 
thoughted idyl, 

Howitt's ballad-verse, or Tennyson's enchanted reverie, — 

Or from Browning some " Pomegranate," which, if cut deep 
down the middle, 

Shows a heart within blood-tinctured, of a veined human- 
ity ! — 

Or at times I read there, hoarsely, some new poem of my 165 

making — 
Poets ever fail in reading their own verses to their 

worth, — 
For the echo, in you, breaks upon the words which you are 

speaking, 
And the chariot wheels jar in the gate, through which you 

drive them forth. 

After, when we were grown tired of books, the silence round 

us flinging 
A slow arm of sweet compression, felt with beatings at the 170 

breast, — 
She would break out on a sudden, in a gush of woodland 

singing, 
Like a child's emotion in a god — a naiad tired of rest. 

Oh, to see or hear her singing ! scarce I know which is 

divinest — 
For her looks sing too — she modulates her gestures on the 

tune ; 



26 SELECTED POEMS 



17s And her mouth stirs with the song, like song ; and when 
the notes are finest, 
'T is the eyes that shoot out vocal light, and seem to swell 
them on. 

Then we talked — oh, how we talked ! her voice, so cadenced 

in the talking, 
Made another singing — of the soul ! a music without 

bars — 
While the leafy sounds of woodlands, humming round where 

we were walking, 
180 Brought interposition worthy-sweet, — as skies about the 

stars. 

And she spake such good thoughts natural, as if she always 

thought them — 
She had sympathies so rapid, open, free as bird on branch. 
Just as ready to fly east as west, whichever way besought 

them. 
In the birchen-wood a chirrup, or a cock-crow in the 

grange. 

185 In her utmost lightness there is truth — and often she speaks 

lightly; 
Has a grace in being gay, which even mournful souls 

approve ; 
For the root of some grave earnest thought is understruck 

so rightly. 
As to justify the foliage and the waving flowers above. 

And she talked on — we talked truly ! upon all things — 
substance — shadow — 
iQo Of the sheep that browsed the grasses — of the reapers in 
the corn — 



% 



LADY GERALDINE'S COURTSHIP 2/ 

Of the little children from the schools, seen winding through 

the meadow — 
Of the poor rich world beyond them, still kept poorer by its 

scorn. 

So, of men, and so, of letters — books are men of higher 

stature, 
And the only men that speak aloud for future times to 

hear. 
So, of mankind in the abstract, which grows slowly into 195 

nature, 
Yet will lift the cry of "progress," as it trod from sphere to 

sphere. 

And her custom was to praise me, when I said, — " The Age 

culls simples, 
With a broad clown's back turned broadly, to the glory of 

the stars — 
We are gods by our own reck'ning, — and may well shut up 

the temples, 
And wield on, amid the incense-steam, the thunder of our 200 

cars. 

" For we throw out acclamations of self-thanking, self- 
admiring. 

With, at every mile run faster, — ' O the wondrous, wondrous 
age,' 

Little thinking if we work our souls as nobly as our iron, — 

Or if angels will commend us, at the goal of pilgrimage. 

" Why, what is this patient entrance into nature's deep 205 

resources, 
But the child's most gradual learning to walk upright without 

bane ? — 



28 SELECTED POEMS 

When we drive out, from the cloud of steam, majestical 

white horses. 
Are we greater than the first men, who led black ones by 

the mane ? 

" If we trod the deeps of ocean, if we struck the stars in 

rising, 
2IO If we wrapped the globe intensely with one hot electric breath, 
'T were but power within our tether — no new spirit-power 

conferring — 
And in life we were not greater men, nor bolder men in 

death." 

She was patient with my talking; and I loved her — loved 

her certes 
As I loved all heavenly objects, with uplifted eyes and hands! 
215 As I loved pure inspirations — loved the graces, loved the 

virtues, — 
In a Love content with writing his own name, on desert 

sands. 

Or at least I thought so, purely ! — thought, no idiot Hope 

was raising 
Any crown to crown Love's silence — silent Love that sate 

alone — ■ 
Out, alas! the stag is like me — he, that tries to go on 

grazing 
220 With the great deep gun-wound in his neck, then reels with 

sudden moan. 

It was thus I reeled ! I told you that her hand had many 

suitors — 
But she smiles them down imperially, as Venus did, the 

waves — 



LADY GERALDINE'S COURTSHIP 29 

And with such a gracious coldness, that they cannot press 

their futures 
On the present of her courtesy, which yieldingly enslaves. 

And this morning, as I sat alone within the inner chamber 225 
With the great saloon beyond it, lost in pleasant thought 

serene — 
For I had been reading Camoens — that poem you remember, 
Which his lady's eyes are praised in, as the sweetest ever 

seen. 

And the book lay open, and my thought flew from it, taking 
from it 

A vibration and impulsion to an end beyond its own, — 230 

As the branch of a green osier, when a child would over- 
come it. 

Springs up freely from his clasping, and goes swinging in the 
sun. 

As I mused I heard a murmur, — it grew deep as it grew 

longer — 
Speakers using earnest language — "Lady Geraldine, you 

would! " 
And I heard a voice that pleaded ever on, in accents 235 

stronger. 
As a sense of reason gave it power to make its rhetoric 

good. 

Well I knew that voice — it was an earl's, of soul that 

matched his station — 
Of a soul complete in lordship, — might and right read on 

his brow; 
Very finely courteous — far too proud to doubt his domination 
Of the common people, — he atones for grandeur by a bow. 240 



30 SELECTED POEMS 

High straight forehead, nose of eagle, cold blue eyes, of less 
expression 

Than resistance, — coldly casting off the looks of other men. 

As steel, arrows, — unelastic lips, which seem to taste pos- 
session 

And be cautious lest the common air should injure or 
distrain. 

245 For the rest, accomplished, upright, — ay, and standing by 
his order 
With a bearing not ungraceful ; fond of art, and letters too. 
Just a good man, made a proud man, — as the sandy rocks 

that border 
A wild coast, by circumstances, in a regnant ebb and flow. 

Thus, I knew that voice — I heard it — and I could not help 

the hearkening : 
250 In the room I stood up blindly, and my burning heart within 
Seemed to seethe and fuse my senses till they ran on all 

sides, darkening, 
And scorched, weighed, like melted metal, round my feet 

that stood therein. 

And that voice, I heard it pleading, for love's sake — for 

wealth, position, , . . 
For the sake of liberal uses, and great actions to be done — 
255 And she answered, answered gently — "Nay, my lord, the 

old tradition 
Of your Normans, by some worthier hand than mine is, 

should be won." 

"Ah, that white hand!" he said quickly, — and in his he 

either drew it. 
Or attempted — for with gravity and instance she replied — 



LADY GERALDINE'S COURTSHIP 31 

"Nay indeed, my lord, this talk is vain, and we had best 

eschew it. 
And pass on, like friends, to other points less easy to 260 

decide." 

What he said again, I know not. It is likely that his trouble 
Worked his pride up to the surface, for she answered in 

slow scorn — 
"And your lordship judges rightly. Whom I marry, shall 

be noble, 
Ay, and wealthy. I shall never blush to think how he was 

born." 

There, I maddened ! her words stung me ! Life swept 265 

through me into fever. 
And my soul sprang up astonished ; sprang f uU-statured in 

an hour. 
Know you what it is when anguish, with apocalyptic never, 
To a Pythian height dilates you, — and despair sublimes to 

power? 

From my brain, the soul-wings budded! — waved a flame 

about my body, 
Whence conventions coiled to ashes. I felt self-drawn out, 270 

as man. 
From amalgamate false natures ; and I saw the skies grow 

ruddy 
With the deepening feet of angels, and I knew what spirits 

can. 

I was mad — inspired — say either ! anguish worketh inspira- 
tion ! 

Was a man or beast — perhaps so ; for the tigers roar when 
speared ; 



32 SELECTED POEMS 

275 And I walked on, step by step, along the level of my passion — 
Oh my soul ! and passed the doorway to her face, and never 
feared. 

He had left her, — peradventure, when my footstep proved 

my coming — 
But for her — she half arose, then sate, grew scarlet and 

grew pale : 
Oh, she trembled! — 'tis so always with a worldly man or 

woman 
2S0 In the presence of true spirits — what else can they do but 

quail? 

Oh, she fluttered like a tame bird, in among its forest-brothers. 
Far too strong for it! then drooping, bowed her face upon 

her hands — 
And I spake out wildly, fiercely, brutal truths of her and 

others ! 
/, she planted in the desert, swathed her, windlike, with my 

sands. 

2S5 I plucked up her social fictions, bloody-rooted, though leaf- 
verdant, — 

Trod them down with words of shaming, — all the purples 
and the gold. 

All the "landed stakes" and lordships — all that spirits pure 
and ardent 

Are cast out of love and reverence, because chancing not to 
hold. 

"For myself I do not argue," said I, "though I love you. 
Madam, 
290 But for better souls, that nearer to the height of yours have 
trod — 



LADY GERALDINE'S COURTSHIP 33 

And this age shows, to my thinking, still more infidels to 

Adam, 
Than directly, by profession, simple infidels to God. 

"Yet, O God" (I said), "O grave" (I said), '*0 mother's 

heart and bosom. 
With whom first and last are equal, saint and corpse and 

little child ! 
We are fools to your deductions, in these figments of heart- 295 

closing ! 
We are traitors to your causes, in these sympathies defiled! 

"Learn more reverence, Madam, not for rank or wealth — 

that needs no learning ; 
77/(7/ comes quickly — quick as sin does ! ay, and often works 

to sin ; 
But for Adam's seed, man! Trust me, 'tis a clay above 

your scorning. 
With God's image stamped upon it, and God's kindling 300 

breath within. 

"What right have you, Madam, gazing in your shining 

mirror daily, 
Getting, so, by heart, your beauty, which all others must 

adore, — 
While you draw the golden ringlets down your fingers, to 

vow gaily. 
You will wed no man that 's only good to God, — and nothing 

more ? 

"Why, what right have you, made fair by that same God — 305 
the sweetest woman 

Of all women He has fashioned — with your lovely spirit- 
face, 



34 SELECTED POEMS 

Which would seem too near to vanish, if its smile were not 

so human, — 
And your voice of holy sweetness, turning common words to 

grace : 

"What right ca7i you have, God's other works to scorn, 
despise, revile them 
310 In the gross, as mere men, broadly — not as noble men, for- 
sooth, — 

But as Farias of the outer world, forbidden to assol'/ 
them. 

In the hope of living, dying, near that sweetness of your 
mouth ? 

"Have you any answer, Madam? If my spirit were less 

earthy — 
If its instrument were gifted with more vibrant silver 

strings, 
315 I would kneel down where I stand, and say — 'Behold me ! I 

am worthy 
Of thy loving, for I love thee ! I am worthy as a king.' 

"As it is — your ermined pride, I swear, shall feel this stain 

upon her — 
That /, poor, weak, tost with passion, scorned by me and 

you again, 
Love you, Madam — dare to love you — to my grief and your 

dishonour — 
320 To my endless desolation, and your impotent disdain !" 

More mad words like these — mere madness! friend, I need 

not write them fuller ; 
And I hear my hot soul dropping on the lines in showers of 

tears — 



LADY GERALDINE'S COURTSHIP 35 

Oh, a woman ! friend, a woman ! Why, a beast had scarce 

been duller. 
Than roar bestial loud complaints against the shining of the 

spheres. 

But at last there came a pause. I stood all vibrating with 325 

thunder, 
Which my soul had used. The silence drew her face up like 

a call, 
(^ould you guess what words she uttered? She looked up, 

as if in wonder, 
W^ith tears beaded on her lashes, and said " Bertram ! " it 

was all. 

If she had cursed me — and she might have — or if even, 

with queenly bearing 
Which at need is used by women, she had risen up and said, 330 
" Sir, you are my guest, and therefore I have given you a 

full hearing — 
Now, beseech you, choose a name exacting somewhat less, 

instead " — 

T had borne it ! — but that "Bertram" — why, it lies there on 

the paper 
A mere word, without her accent, — and you cannot judge 

the weight 
Of the calm which crushed my passion! I seemed swim- 335 

ming in a vapour ; 
And her gentleness did shame me, whom her scorn made 

desolate. 

So, struck backward, and exhausted by that inward flow of 

passion 
Which had passed, in deadly rushing, into forms of abstract 

truth, 



36 SELECTED POEMS 

With a logic agonizing through unfit demonstration, 
340 And with youth's own anguish turning grimly grey the hairs 
of youth, — 

With the sense accursed and instant, that if even I spake 
wisely 

I spake basely — using truth, — if what I spake, indeed was 
true — 

To avenge wrong on a woman — her, who sate there weigh- 
ing nicely 

A poor manhood's worth, found guilty of such deeds as I 
could do ! — 

345 With such wrong and woe exhausted — what I suffered and 

occasioned, — 
As a wild horse through a city, runs with lightning in his 

eyes. 
And then dashing at a church's cold and passive wall, 

impassioned, 
Strikes the death into his burning brain, and blindly drops 

and dies — 

So I fell, struck down before her ! Do you blame me, friend, 

for weakness ? 
350 'T was my strength of passion slew me ! — fell before her 

like a stone ; 
Fast the dreadful world rolled from me, on its roaring wheels 

of blackness ! 
When the light came I was lying in this chamber — and 

alone. 

Oh, of course, she charged her lacqueys to bear out the 

sickly burden. 
And to cast it from her scornful sight — but not beyond the 

gate — 



LADY GERALDINE'S COURTSHIP 37 

She is too kind to be cruel, and too haughty not to pardon 355 
Such a man as I — 't were something to be level to her hate. 

But for vie — you now are conscious why, my friend, I write 

this letter, — 
How my life is read all backward, and the charm of life 

undone ! 
I shall leave this house at dawn — I would to-night, if I 

were better — 
And I charge my soul to hold my body strengthened for the 3C0 

sun. 

When the sun has dyed the oriel, I depart with no last gazes. 
No weak meanings — one word only, left in writing for her 

hands, — 
Out of reach of her derisions, and some unavailing praises. 
To make front against this anguish in the far and foreign 

lands. 

Blame me not, I would not squander life in grief — I am 3f,s 

abstemious; 
I but nurse my spirit's falcon, that its wing may soar again ! 
There 's no room for tears of weakness, in the blind eyes of 

a Phemius : 
Into work the poet kneads them, — and he does not die till 

then. 

CONCLUSION 

Bertram finished the last pages, while along the silence ever 
Still in hot and heavy splashes, fell the tears on every leaf : 370 
Having ended, he leans backward in his chair, with lips that 

quiver 
From the deep unspoken, ay, and deep unwritten thoughts 

of grief. 



38 SELECTED POEMS 

Soh ! how still the lady standeth ! 'T is a dream — a dream 

of mercies ! 
'T wixt the purple lattice-curtains, how she standeth still and 

pale ! 
375 'T is a vision, sure, of mercies, sent to soften his self curses — 
Sent to sweep a patient quiet, o'er the tossing of his wail. 

" Eyes," he said, '^ now throbbing through me ! are y^ ayes 

that did undo me ? 
Shining eyes, like antique jewels set in Parian statue-stone ! 
Underneath that calm white forehead, are ye ever burning 
torrid, 
380 O'er the desolate sand-desert of my heart and life undone ? " 

With a murmurous stir, uncertain, in the air, the purple curtain 
Swelleth in and swelleth out around her motionless pale 

brows ; 
While the gliding of the river sends a rippling noise for ever, 
Through the open casement whitened by the moonlight's 

slant repose. 

385 Said he — " Vision of a lady ! stand there silent, stand there 

steady! 
Now I see it plainly, plainly ; now I cannot hope or doubt — 
There, the cheeks of calm expression — there, the lips of 

silent passion, 
Curved like an archer's bow, to send the bitter arrows out." 

Ever, evermore the while in a slow silence she kept smiling, — 
390 And approached him slowly, slowly, in a gliding measured 

pace ; 
With her two white hands extended, as if praying one 

offended. 
And a look of supplication, gazing earnest in his face. 



LADY GERALDINE'S COURTSHIP 39 

Said he, — " Wake me by no gesture, — sound of breath, or 

stir of vesture ; 
Let the blessed apparition melt not yet to its divine ! 
No approaching — hush! no breathing! or my heart must 395 

swoon to death in 
The too utter life thou bringest — O thou dream of Geraldine ! " 

Ever, evermore the while in a slow silence she kept smiling — 
But the tears ran over lightly from her eyes and tenderly ; 
"Dost thou, Bertram, truly love me? Is no woman far 

above me. 
Found more worthy of thy poet-heart, than such a one as /? " 400 

Said he — "I would dream so ever, like the flowing of that 
river, 

Flowing ever in a shadow, greenly onward to the sea; 

So, thou vision of all sweetness — princely to a full com- 
pleteness, — 

Would my heart and life flow onward — deathward — 
through this dream of thee!" 

Ever, evermore the while in a slow silence she kept smiling, — 405 
While the silver tears ran faster down the blushing of her 

cheeks ; 
Then with both her hands enfolding both of his, she softly 

told him, 
" Bertram, if I say I love thee, ... 't is the vision only speaks." 

Softened, quickened to adore her, on his knee he fell before 

her — 
And she whispered low in triumph — " It shall be as I have 410 

sworn ! 
Very rich he is in virtues, — very noble — noble, certes ; 
And I shall not blush in knowing that men call him lowly born." 



40 SELECTED POEMS 

RHYME OF THE DUCHESS MAY 

In the belfry, one by one, went the ringers from the sun, — 

Toll slowly. 
And the oldest ringer said, " Ours is music for the dead 
When the rebecks are all done." 

5 Six abeles i' the kirkyard grow on the north side in a row, — 

Toll sloii'ly. 
And the shadows of their tops rock across the little slopes 
Of the grassy graves below. 

On the south side and the west, a small river runs in haste, — 
lo 7bll slowly. 

And between the river flowing, and the fair green trees 
a-growing, 

Do the dead lie at their rest. 

On the east I sate that day, up against a willow grey : — 

Toll sloivly. 
15 Through the rain of willow-branches, I could see the low 
hill-ranges, 

And the river on its way. 

There I sate beneath the tree, and the bell tolled solemnly, — 

Toll slowly. 
While the trees' and rivers' voices flowed between the solemn 
noises, — 
20 Yet death seemed more loud to me. 

There I read this ancient rhyme, while the bell did all the time 

Toll slowly. 
And the solemn knell fell in with the tale of life and sin. 
Like a rhythmic fate sublime. 



RHYME OF THE DUCHESS MAY 41 

The Rhyme 

Broad the forest stood (I read) on the hills of Linteged, — 25 

Toll sloivly. 
And three hundred years had stood, mute adown each hoary 
wood, 

Like a full heart, having prayed. 

And the little birds sang east, and the little birds sang 

west, — 

Toll slowly. 30 

And but little thought was theirs, of the silent antique years. 
In the building of their nest. 

Down the sun dropt, large and red, on the towers of Lin- 
teged, — 

Toll sloivly. 

Lance and spearhead on the height, bristling strange in fiery 35 
light. 

While the castle stood in shade. 



There, the castle stood up black, with the red sun at its 

back, — 

Toll slowly. 

Like a sullen smouldering pyre, with a top that flickers fire, 

When the wind is on its track. 40 



And five hundred archers tall did besiege the castle wall, — 

Toll slowly. 
And the castle, seethed in blood, fourteen days and nights 
had stood. 

And to-night anears its fall. 



42 SELECTED POEMS 

45 Yet thereunto, blind to doom, three months since, a bride 

did come, — 

Toll slowly. 

One who proudly trod the floors, and softly whispered in the 
doors, 

" May good angels bless our home." 

Oh, a bride of queenly eyes, with a front of co. ^tancies, — 
50 Toll slowly. 

Oh, a bride of cordial mouth, — where the untired smile of 
youth 

Did light outward its own sighs. 

'T was a Duke's fair orphan-girl, and her uncle's ward, the Earl 

Toll slowly. 
55 Who betrothed her twelve years old, for the sake of dowry 
gold, 

To his son Lord Leigh, the churl. 

But what time she had made good all her years of woman- 
hood, — 

Toll slowly. 

Unto both these lords of Leigh, spake she out right sovranly, 
60 "My will runneth as my blood." 

" And while this same blood makes red this same right 
hand's veins," she said, — 

Toll slowly. 
' 'T is my will, as lady free, not to wed a lord of Leigh, 
But, Sir Guy of Linteged." 

65 The old Earl he smiled smooth, then he sighed for wilful 

youth, — 

Toll slowly. 



RHYME OF THE DUCHESS MAY 43 

"Good my niece, that hand withal looketh somewhat soft 
and small, 

For so large a will, in sooth." 

She too smiled by that same sign, — but her smile was cold 

and fine, — 

Toll slowly. 70 

" Little hand clasps muckle gold ; or it were not worth the 

hold 

Of thy son, good uncle mine ! " 

Then the young lord jerked his breath, and sware thickly in 

his teeth, — 

Toll slowly. 

" He would wed his own betrothed, an she loved him an 75 

she loathed. 

Let the life come or the death." 

Up she rose with scornful eyes, as her father's child might 

rise, — 

Toll slowly. 

" Thy hound's blood, my lord of Leigh, stains thy knightly 

heel," quoth she, 

"And he moans not where he lies. 80 

" But a woman's will dies hard, in the hall or on the 

sward ! " — ^ 

Toll slowly. 

" By that grave, my lords, which made me orphaned girl 

and dowered lady, 

I deny you wife and ward ! " 

Unto each she bowed her head and swept past with lofty 85 

tread, — 

Toll slowly. 



44 SELECTED POEMS 

P'.re the midnight-bell had ceased, in the chapel had the 
priest 

Blessed her, bride of Linteged. 

Fast and fain the bridal train along the night-storm rode 

amain : — 

^„ Toll slowly. 

Wild the steeds of lord and serf struck their hoofs out on 
the turf, 

In the pauses of the rain. 

Fast and fain the kinsmen's train along the storm pursued 

amain, — 

Toll slowly. 

•)5 Steed on steed-track, dashing off — thickening, doubling, 

hoof on hoof. 

In the pauses of the rain. 

And the bridegroom led the llight, on his red-roan steed of 

might, — 

loll slowly. 

And the bride lay on his arm, still, as if she feared no harm, 
TOO Smiling out into the night. 

" Dost thou fear } " he said at last ; — " Nay ! " she answered 

him in haste, — 

Toll shnvly. 

" Not such death as we could find — only life with one 

behind — 

Ride on fast as fear — ride fast ! " 

los Up the mountain wheeled the steed — girth to ground, and 

fetlocks spread, — 

Toll shnvly. 



RHYME OF THE DUCHESS MAY 45 

Headlong bounds, and rocking flanks, — down he staggered 
— down the banks, 

To the towers of Linteged. 

High and low the serfs looked out, red the flambeaus tossed 

about, — 

Toll slowly. 1,0 

In the courtyard rose the cry — "Live the Duchess and Sir 

Guy!" 

Hut she never heard them shout. 

On the steed she dropped her cheek, kissed his mane and 

kissed his neck, — 

Toll slowly. 

** I had happier died by thee, than lived on a Lady Leigh," ,,5 
Were the words which she did speak. 

But a three months' joyaunce lay 'twixt that moment and 

to-day, — 

loll slowly. 

When Ave hundred archers tall stand beside the castle wall, 

To recapture Duchess May. 120 

And the castle standeth black, with the red sun at its back, — 

loll slowly. 
And a fortnight's siege is done — and, except the Duchess, 
none, 

Can misdoubt the coming wrack. 

Then the captain, young Lord Leigh, with his eyes so grey .25 

of blee. 

Toll sloic'ly. 

And thin lips, that scarcely sheathe the cold white gnashing 
of his teeth, 

Gnashed in smiling, absently, — 



46 SELECTED POEMS 



1 



Cried aloud — " So goes the day, bridegroom fair of Duchess 

May!" — 
130 Toll slowly. 

" Look thy last upon that sun. If thou seest to-morrow's 

one, 

'T will be through a foot of clay. 



" Ha, fair bride ! Dost hear no sound, save that moaning 

of the hound ? " 

Toll slowly. 

I3S " Thou and I have parted troth, — yet I keep my vengeance- 
oath, 

And the other may come round. 

" Ha ! thy will is brave to dare, and thy new love past com- 
pare," — 

Toll slowly. 

"Yet thine old love's faulchion brave is as strong a thing 
to have, 
140 As the will of lady fair. 

"Peck on blindly, netted dove! — If a wife's name thee 

behove," — 

Toll shnvly. 

" Thou shalt wear the same to-morrow, ere the grave has 
hid the sorrow 

Of thy last ill-mated love. 

145 " O'er his fixed and silent mouth, thou and I will call back 

troth," — 

Toll slowly. 

" He shall altar be and priest, — and he will not cry at least 

' I forbid you, I am loth ! ' 



RHYME OF THE DUCHESS MAY 47 

'' I will wring thy fingers pale, in the gauntlet of my mail," — 

Toll slowly. 150 

" ' Little hand and muckle gold ' close shall lie within my 
hold. 

As the sword did, to prevail." 

Oh, the little birds sang east, and the little birds sang west, — 

I'oll slowly. 
Oh, and laughed the Duchess May, and her soul did put 155 
away 

All his boasting, for a jest. 

In her chamber did she sit, laughing low to think of it, — 

Toll slowly. 
"Tower is strong and will is free — thou canst boast, my 
lord of Leigh, — 

But thou boastest Httle wit." 160 

In her tire-glass gazed she, and she blushed right womanly, — 

Toll slowly. 
She blushed half from her disdain — half, her beauty was so 
plain, 

— " Oath for oath, my lord of Leigh ! " 

Straight she called her maidens in — " Since ye gave me 165 

blame herein," — 

Toll sloivly. 
" That a bridal such as mine should lack gauds to make it 
fine, 

Come and shrive me from that sin. 

^' It is three months gone to-day since I gave mine hand 

away : " — 

Toll shnvly. 170 



48 SELECTED POEMS 



1 



•' Bring the gold and bring the gem, we will keep bride- 
state in them, 

While we keep the foe at bay. 

" On your arms I loose my hair ; — comb it smooth and crown 

it fair," — 

Toll sloic'ly. 

175 " I would look in purple-pall from this lattice down the wall, 

And throw scorn to one that 's there ! " 

Oh, the little birds sang east, and the little birds sang west, — 

Toll slo7('ly. 
On the tower the castle's lord leant in silence on his sword, 
180 With an anguish in his breast. 

With a spirit-laden weight did he lean down passionate, — 

7}>11 slo7C'ly. 
They have almost sapped the wall, — they will enter there 
withal 

With no knocking at the gate. 

185 Then the sword he leant upon, shivered — snapped upon 

the stone, — 

7oll slowly. 

" Sword," he thought, with inward laugh, " ill thou servest 

for a staff. 

When thy nobler use is done ! 

" Sword, thy nobler use is done ! — tower is lost, and shame 

begun : " — 
I go Toll slowly. 

" If we met them in the breach, hilt to hilt or speech to 

speech, 

We should die there, each for one. 



RHYME OF THE DUCHESS MAY 



49 



" If we met them at the wall, we should singly, vainly fall," — 

Toll shnuly. 
" But if /die here alone, — then I die who am but one, 19s 

And die nobly for them all. 

" Five true friends lie for my sake — in the moat and in the 

brake," — 

Toll slo7vly. 

" Thirteen warriors lie at rest, with a black wound in the 

breast, 

And not one of these will wake. 200 

"And no more of this shall be! — heart-blood weighs too 

heavily," — 

Toll shnvly. 

" And I could not sleep in grave, with the faithful and the 
brave 

Heaped around and over me. 

" Since young Clare a mother hath, and young Ralph a 205 

plighted faith," — 

Toll sloivly. 

" Since my pale young sister's cheeks blush like rose when 

Ronald speaks, 

Albeit never a word she saith — 

" These shall never die for me — life-blood falls too 

heavily : " — 

Toll sloivly. 210 

'' And if / die here apart, — o'er my dead and silent heart 

They shall pass out safe and free. 

" When the foe hath heard it said — * Death holds Guy of 

Linteged," — 

Toll slowly. 



50 SELECTED POEMS 

215 " That new corse new peace shall bring ; and a blessed, 
>ed thing 
Shall the stone be at its head. 



blessed thing 



" Then my friends shall pass out free, and shall bear my 

memory," — 

Toll slowly. 

" Then my foes shall sleek their pride, soothing fair my 
widowed bride, 
220 Whose sole sin was love of me. 

" With their words all smooth and sweet, they will front her 

and entreat : " — 

Toll slowly. 

'' And their purple-pall will spread underneath her fainting 

head. 

While her tears drop over it. 

225 " She will weep her woman's tears, she will pray her woman's 

prayers," — 

loll sloic'ly. 

** But her heart is young in pain, and her hopes will spring 
again 

By the suntime of her years. 

"Ah, sweet May — ah, sweetest grief! — once I vowed thee 

my belief," — 
230 Toll shm'ly. 

" That thy name expressed thy sweetness, — May of poets, 

in completeness ! 

Now my May-day seemeth brief." 

All these silent thoughts did swim o'er his eyes grown strange 

and dim, — 

loll sloK'ly. 



RHYME OF THE DUCHESS MAY 51 

Till his true men, in the place, wished they stood there face 235 
to face 

With the foe instead of him. 

" One last oath, my friends, that wear faithful hearts to do 

and dare ! " — 

Toll shnvly. 

"Tower must fall and bride be lost! — swear me service 

worth the cost," 

Bold they stood around to swear. 240 

*' Each man clasp my hand, and swear, by the deed we failed 

in there," — 

Toll slowly. 

" Not for vengeance, not for right, will ye strike one blow 

to-night ! " — 

Pale they stood around — to swear. 

" One last boon, young Ralph and Clare I faithful hearts to 245 

do and dare ! " 

Toll shnvly. 

" Bring that steed up from his stall, which she kissed before 

you all, — 

Guide him up the turret-stair. 

" Ye shall harness him aright, and lead upward to this 

height ! " 

Toll shnvly. 250 

'•'■ Once in love and twice in war, hath he borne me strong 

and far, — 

He shall bear me far to-night." 

Then his men looked to and fro, when they heard him 

speaking so, — 

2\)ll slowly. 



52 SELECTED POEMS 

255 " 'L:is ! the noble heart," they thout^^lit, " he in sooth is grief- 
distraught. — 

Would we stood here with the foe 1 " 

But a fire flashed from his eye, 'twixt their thought and their 

reply, — 

Toll slowly. 

" Have ye so much time to waste ? We who ride here, must 
ride fast, 
2(.o As we wish our foes to fly." 

i'iiey have fetched the steed with care, in the harness he 

did wear, — 

Toll slowly. 

Past the court and through the doors, across the rushes of 
the floors ; 

Hut they goad him up the stair. 

265 Then from out her bower chamb^re, did the Duchess May 

repair, — 

Toll slowly. 

"Tell me now what is your need," said the lady, "of this 
steed. 

That ye goad him up the stair ? " 

Calm she stood ! unbodkined through, fell her dark hair to 

her shoe, — 
270 Toll sloivly. 

And the smile upon her face, ere she left the tiring-glass. 

Had not time enough to go. 

" Get thee back, sweet Duchess May ! hope is gone like 

yesterday," — 

Toll slowly. 



RHYME OF THE DUCHESS MAY 53 

" One half-hour completes the breach ; and thy lord grows 275 
wild of speech. — 

Get thee in, sweet lady, and pray. 

"In the east tower, high'st of all, — loud he cries for steed 

from stall," — 

Toll slowly. 

" * He would ride as far,' quoth he, 'as for love and victory, 

Though he rides the castle-wall.' 280 

" And we fetch the steed from stall, up where never a hoof 

did fall." — 

Toll slowly. 

" Wifely prayer meets deathly need ! may the sweet Heavens 

hear thee plead. 

If he rides the castle-wall I " 

Low she dropt her head, and lower, till her hair coiled on 285 

the lloor, — 

Toll slowly. 

And tear after tear you heard, fall distinct as any word 

Which you might be listening for. 

"Get thee in, thou soft ladye ! — here is never a place for 

thee ! " — 

Toll slowly. 2QO 

" Braid thine hair and clasp thy gown, that thy beauty in its 

moan 

May find grace with Leigh of Leigh." 

She stood up in bitter case, with a pale yet steady face, — 

Toll sloivly. 
Like a statue thunderstruck, which, though quivering, seems 295 
to look 

Right against the thunder-place. 



54 SELECTED POEMS 



n 



And her foot trod in, with pride, her own tears i' the stone 

beside, — 

Toll slowly. 

" Go to, faithful friends, go to ! — judge no more what ladies 
do, — 
300 No, nor how their lords may ride ! " 

Then the good steed's rein she took, and his neck did kiss 

and stroke : — 

Toll slowly. 

Soft he neighed to answer her ; and then followed up the 

stair. 

For the love of her sweet look : 

305 Oh, and steeply, steeply wound up the narrow stair around, — 

l^oll slowly. 
Oh, and closely, closely speeding, step by step beside her 
treading, 

Did he follow, meek as hound. 

On the east tower, high'st of all, — there, where never a 

hoof did fall, — 
310 Toll slowly. 

Out they swept, a vision steady, noble steed and lovely 

lady. 

Calm as if in bower or stall. 



Down she knelt at her lord's knee, and she looked up 

silently, — 

Toll slowly. 

315 And he kissed her twice and thrice, for that look within her 

eyes. 

Which he could not bear to see. 



RHYME OF THE DUCHESS MAY 55 

Quoth he, " Get thee from this strife, — and the sweet saints 

bless thy life ! " — 

Toll slowly. 

" In this hour, I stand in need of my noble red-roan steed — 

But no more of my noble wife." 320 

Quoth she, " Meekly have I done all thy biddings under 

sun : " — 

Toll sloivly. 

" But by all my womanhood, — which is proved so, true and 
good, 

I will never do this one. 

" Now by womanhood's degree, and by wifehood's verity," — 325 

Toll sloivly. 
" In this hour if thou hast need of thy noble red-roan steed, 
Thou hast also need of 77ie. 

" By this golden ring ye see on this lifted hand pardie," — 

Toll slowly. 330 

" If, this hour, on castle-wall, can be room for steed from 
stall. 

Shall be also room for tne. 

" So the sweet saints with me be," (did she utter solemnly), — 

Toll slowly. 
" If a man, this eventide, on this castle-wall will ride, 33s 

He shall ride the same with me." 

Oh, he sprang up in the selle, and he laughed out bitter- 
well, — 

Toll slowly. 

" Wouldst thou ride among the leaves, as we used on other 
eves. 

To hear chime a vesper-bell ? " 340 



56 SELECTED POEMS 

She clung closer to his knee — " Ay, beneath the cypress- 
tree ! " — 

Toll slowly. 

" Mock me not ; for otherwhere than along the greenwood 
fair, 

Have I ridden fast with thee ! 



345 " Fast I rode with new-made vows, from my angry kinsman's 

house ! " 

Toll slowly. 

" What ! and would you men should reck, that I dared more 

for love's sake. 

As a bride than as a spouse ? 

" What, and would you it should fall, as a proverb, before 

all," — 
350 Toll slowly, 

" That a bride may keep your side, while through castle-gate 

you ride. 

Yet eschew the castle-wall ? " 



Ho ! the breach yawns into ruin, and roars up against her 

suing, — 

Toll slowly. 

355 With the inarticulate din, and the dreadful falling in — 

Shrieks of doing and undoing ! 

Twice he wrung her hands in twain, — but the small hands 

closed again, — 

Toll slowly. 

Back he reined the steed — back, back ! but she trailed 

along his track, 

360 With a frantic clasp and strain. 



RHYME OF THE DUCHESS MAY 57 

Evermore the foemen pour through the crash of window 

and door, — 

Toll slowly. 

And the shouts of Leigh and Leigh, and the shrieks of 

"kill!" and "flee!" 

Strike up clear the general roar. 

Thrice he wrung her hands in twain, — but they closed and 365 

clung again, — 

l^oll slowly. 

While she clung, as one, withstood, clasps a Christ upon 

the rood. 

In a spasm of deathly pain. 

She clung wild and she clung mute, — with her shuddering 

lips half-shut, — 

Toll slowly. 370 

Her head fallen as half in swound, — hair and knee swept 

on the ground, — 

She clung wild to stirrup and foot. 

Back he reined his steed back-thrown on the slippery coping- 
stone, — 

Toll slowly. 

Back the iron hoofs did grind, on the battlement behind, 375 
Whence a hundred feet went down. 



And' his heel did press and goad on the quivering flank 

bestrode, — 

Toll slowly. 

" Friends, and brothers ! save my wife ! — Pardon, sweet, in 
change for life, — 

But I ride alone to God." ' 380 



58 SELECTED POEMS 

Straight as if the Holy name had upbreathed her like a 

flame, — 

Toll slowly. 

She upsprang, she rose upright ! — in his selle she sate in 

sight ; 

By her love she overcame. 

385 And her head was on his breast where she smiled as one at 

rest, — 

Toll slowly. 

" Ring," she cried, " O vesper-bell, in the beechwood's old 
chapelle ! 

But the passing-bell rings best." 

They have caught out at the rein, which Sir Guy threw loose 

— in vain, — 
390 Toll slowly. 

For the horse in stark despair, with his front hoofs poised in air. 

On the last verge, rears amain. 

And he hangs, he rocks between — and his nostrils curdle 

in, — 

Toll slowly. 

395 And he shivers head and hoof — and the flakes of foam 
fall off ; 

And his face grows fierce and thin ! 

And a look of human woe, from his staring eyes did go, — 

Toll slowly. 
And a sharp cry uttered he, in a foretold agony 
400 Of the headlong death below, — 

And, " Ring, ring, thou passing-bell," still she cried, " i' the 

old chapelle ! " — 

Toll slowly. 



RHYME OF THE DUCHESS MAY 59 

Then back-toppling, crashing back — a dead weight flung 
out to wrack, 

Horse and riders overfell. 



Oh, the little birds sang east, and the little birds sang west, — 405 

Toll slowly. 
And I read this ancient Rhyme, in the kirkyard, while the 
chime 

Slowly tolled for one at rest. 

The abeles moved in the sun, and the river smooth did run, — 

Toll slowly, 410 

And the ancient Rhyme rang strange, with its passion and 
its change, 

Here, where all done lay undone. 

And beneath a willow tree I a little grave did see, — 

Toll sloivly. 
Where was graved, — Here, undefiled, lieth Maud, a 415 
three-year child, 

Eighteen hundred forty-three. 

Then, O Spirits — did I say — ye who rode so fast that 

day, — 

Toll slowly. 

Did star-wheels and angel wings, with their holy winnowings. 

Keep beside you all the way ? 420 

Though in passion ye would dash, with a blind and heavy 

crash. 

Toll slowly. 

Up against the thick-bossed shield of God's judgment in the 
field, — 

Though your heart and brain were rash, — 



6o SELECTED POEMS 

425 Now, your will is all unwilled — now, your pulses are all 

stilled, — 

Toll slowly. 

Now, ye lie as meek and mild (whereso laid) as Maud the 

child. 

Whose small grave was lately filled. 

Beating heart and burning brow, ye are very patient now, — 
430 Toll slowly. 

And the children might be bold to pluck the kingcups from 
your mould. 

Ere a month had let them grow. 

And you let the goldfinch sing in the alder near, in spring, — 

Toll slowly. 
435 Let her build her nest, and sit all the three weeks out on it, 
Murmuring not at anything. 

In your patience ye are strong, cold and heat ye take not 

wrong ; — 

Toll slowly. 

When the trumpet of the angel blows eternity's evangel, 

440 Time will seem to you not long. 

Oh, the little birds sang east, and the little birds sang west, — 

Toll slozuly. 
And I said in underbreath, — All our life is mixed with 
death, — 

And who knoweth which is best ? 

445 Oh, the little birds sang east, and the little birds sang west, — 

Toll slowly. 
And I smiled to think God's greatness flowed around our 
incompleteness, — 

Round our restlessness, His rest. 



THE LOST BOWER 6 1 



THE LOST BOWER 



In the pleasant orchard closes, 
"God bless all our gains," say we; 
But " May God bless all our losses " 
Better suits with our degree. — 
Listen, gentle — ay, and simple! Listen, children on the 5 
knee ! 

II 

Green the land is, where my daily 
Steps in jocund childhood played — 
Dimpled close with hill and valley, 
Dappled very close with shade ; 
Summer-snow of apple-blossoms, running up from glade to 10 
glade. 

Ill 

There is one hill I see nearer, 
In my vision of the rest ; 
And a little wood seems clearer, 
As it climbeth from the west, 
Sideway from the tree-locked valley, to the airy upland 15 
crest. 



IV 

Small the wood is, green with hazels, 
And, completing the ascent. 
Where the wind blows and sun dazzles, 
Thrills in leafy tremblement ; 
Like a heart that, after climbing, beateth quickly through 20 
content. 



62 SELECTED POEMS 



Not a step the wood advances 
O'er the open hill-top's bound : 
There, in green arrest, the branches 
See their image on the ground : 
25 You may walk beneath them smiling, glad with sight and 



glad with sound. 



VI 



For you hearken on your right hand, 
How the birds do leap and call 
In the greenwood, out of sight and 
Out of reach and fear of all ; 
30 And the squirrels crack the filberts, through their cheerful 
madrigal. 

VII 

On your left, the sheep are cropping 
The slant grass and daisies pale ; 
And five apple-trees stand, dropping 
Separate shadows toward the vale, 
35 Over which, in choral silence, the hills look you their *' All 
hail ! " 

VIII 

Far out, kindled by each other, 
Shining hills on hills arise ; 
Close as brother leans to brother. 
When they press beneath the eyes 
40 Of some father praying blessings from the gifts of paradise. 

IX 

While beyond, above them mounted. 
And above their woods also, 



THE LOST BOWER 63 

Malvern hills, for mountains counted 
Not undulv, loom a-row — 
Keepers of Piers Plowman's visions through the sunshine 45 
and the snow.^ 

X 

Yet, in childhood, little prized I 
That fair walk and far survey : 
'T was a straight walk, unadvised by 
The least mischief worth a nay — 
Up and down — as dull as grammar on the eve of holiday. 50 

XI 

But the wood, all close and clenching 
Bough in bough and root in root, — 
No more sky (for over-branching) 
At your head than at your foot, — 
Oh, the wood drew me within it, by a glamour past dispute. 55 

XII 

Few and broken paths showed through it, 
Where the sheep had tried to run, — 
Forced with snowy wool to strew it 
Round the thickets, when anon 
They, with silly thorn-pricked noses, bleated back into the 60 
sun. 

XIII 

But my childish heart beat stronger 
Than those thickets dared to grow : 
/could pierce them ! /could longer 
Travel on, methought, than so. 
Sheep for sheep-paths! braver children climb and creep ^5 
where they would go. 

1 The Malvern hills of Worcestershire are the scene of Langland's 
visions, and thus present the earliest classic ground of English poetry. 



64 SELECTED POEMS 

XIV 

And the poets wander, said I, 
Over places all as rude ! 
Bold Rinaldo's lovely lady 
Sate to meet him in a wood — 
70 Rosalinda, like a fountain, laughed out pure with solitude. 

XV 

And if Chaucer had not travelled 
Through a forest by a well, 
He had never dreamt nor marvelled 
At those ladies fair and fell 
75 Who lived smiling without loving, in their island-citadel. 

XVI 

Thus I thought of the old singers, 
And took courage from their song, 
Till my little struggling fingers 
Tore asunder gyve and thong 
So Of the lichens which entrapped me and the barrier branches 
strong. 

XVII 

On a day, such pastime Keeping, 
With a fawn's heart debonair, 
Under-crawling, overleaping 
Thorns that prick and boughs that bear, 
8s I stood suddenly astonished — I was gladdened unaware. 

XVIII 

From the place I stood in, floated 
Back the covert dim and close ; 



THE LOST BOWER 65 

And the open ground was coated 
Carpet-smooth with grass and moss, 
And the blue-bell's purple presence signed it worthily go 
across. 

XIX 

Here a linden-tree stood, brightening 
All adown its silver rind; 
For, as some trees draw the lightning, 
So this tree, unto my mind. 
Drew to earth the blessed sunshine, from the sky where it 95 
was shrined. 

XX 

Tall the linden-tree, and near it 
An old hawthorn also grew ; 
And wood-ivy like a spirit 
Hovered dimly round the two, 
Shaping thence that Bower of beauty which I sing of thus 100 
to you. 

XXI 

'Twas a bower for garden fitter, 
Than for any woodland wide. 
Though a fresh and dewy glitter 
Struck it through from side to side. 
Shaped and shaven was the freshness, as by garden-cunning 105 
plied. 

XXII 

Oh, a lady might have come there, 
Hooded fairly like her hawk. 
With a book or lute in summer, 
And a hope of sweeter talk, — 
Listening less to her own music, than for footsteps on the iro 
walk ! 



66 SELECTED POEMS 

XXIII 

But that bower appeared a marvel 
In the wildness of the place ! 
With such seeming art and travail, 
Finely fixed and fitted was 
115 Leaf to leaf, the dark-green ivy, to the summit from the 
base. 

XXIV 

And the ivy, veined and glossy, 
Was inwrought with eglantine ; 
And the wild hop fibred closely. 
And the large-leaved columbine, 
120 Arch of door and window-muUion did right sylvanly entwine. 

XXV 

Rose-trees, either side the door, were 
Growing lithe and growing tall ; 
Each one set a summer warder 
For the keeping of the hall, — 
125 With a red rose, and a white rose, leaning, nodding at the 
wall. 

XXVI 

As I entered — mosses hushing 
Stole all noises from my foot ; 
And a green elastic cushion, 
Clasped within the linden's root. 
130 Took me in a chair of silence, very rare and absolute. 

XXVII 

All the floor was paved with glory, — 
Greenly, silently inlaid, 



THE LOST BOWER 6/ 

Through quick motions made before me, 
With fair counterparts in shade, 
Of the fair serrated ivy-leaves which slanted overhead. 135 

XXVIII 

" Is such pavement in a palace ? " 
So I questioned in my thought : 
The sun, shining through the chalice 
Of the red rose hung without, 
Threw within a red libation, like an answer to my doubt. 140 

XXIX 

At the same time, on the linen 
Of my childish lap there fell 
Two white may-leaves, downward winning 
Through the ceiling's miracle. 
From a blossom, like an angel, out of sight yet blessing 145 
well. 

XXX 

Down to floor and up to ceiling, 
Quick I turned my childish face ; 
With an innocent appealing 
For the secret of the place. 
To the trees, which surely knew it, in partaking of the 150 
grace. 

XXXI 

Where's no foot of human creature, 
How could reach a human hand.-* 
And if this be work of nature. 
Why is nature sudden bland. 
Breaking off from other wild work.? It was hard to under- 155 
stand. 



68 SELECTED POEMS 

XXXII 

Was she weary of rough-doing, 
Of the bramble and the thorn ? 
Did she pause in tender rueing, 
Here, of all her sylvan scorn ? 
i6o Or, in mock of art's deceiving, was the sudden mildness, 
worn ? 

XXXIII 

Or could this same bower (I fancied) 
Be the work of Dryad strong; 
Who, surviving all that chanced 
In the world's old pagan wrong, 
165 Lay hid, feeding in the woodland on the last true poet's 
song? 

XXXIV 

Or was this the house of fairies, 
Left, because of the rough ways, 
Unassoiled by Ave Marys 
Which the passing pilgrim prays, — 
170 And beyond St. Catherine's chiming, on the blessed Sabbath 
days? 

XXXV 

So, young muser, I sate listening 
To my fancy's wildest word — 
On a sudden, through the glistening 
Leaves around, a little stirred, 
17s Came a sound, a sense of music, which was rather felt than 
heard. 

XXXVI 

Softly, finely, it inwound me — 
From the world it shut me in, — 



THE LOST BOWER 69 

Like a fountain, falling round me, 
Which with silver waters thin 
Clips a little marble Naiad, sitting smilingly within. iSo 

XXXVII 

Whence the music came, who knoweth ? 
/know nothing. But indeed 
Pan or Faunus never bloweth 
So much sweetness from a reed 
Which has sucked the milk of waters, at the oldest riverhead. 185 

XXXVIII 

Never lark the sun can waken 
With such sweetness ! when the lark. 
The high planets overtaking 
In the half-evanished Dark, 
Casts his singing to their singing, like an arrow to the mark. 190 

XXXIX 

Never nightingale so singeth — 
Oh ! she leans on thorny tree, 
And her poet-song she flingeth 
Over pain to victory ! 
Yet she never sings such music, — or she sings it not to me. 195 

XL 

Never blackbirds, never thrushes, 
Nor small finches sing as sweet, 
When the sun strikes through the bushes, 
To their crimson clinging feet. 
And their pretty eyes look sideways to the summer heavens 200 
complete. 



70 SELECTED POEMS 

XLI 

If it were a bird, it seemed 
Most like Chaucer's, which, in sooth. 
He of green and azure dreamed. 
While it sate in spirit-ruth 
205 On that bier of a crowned lady, singing nigh her silent 
mouth. 

XLII 

If it were a bird ? — ah, sceptic, 
Give me " Yea " or give me " Nay " — 
Though my soul were nympholeptic. 
As I heard that virelay, 
210 You may stoop your pride to pardon, for my sin is far away. 

XLIII 

I rose up in exaltation 
And an inward trembling heat. 
And (it seemed) in geste of passion. 
Dropped the music to my feet, 
215 Like a garment rustling downwards ! — such a silence 
followed it. 

XLIV 

Heart and head beat through the quiet. 
Full and heavily, though slower ; 
In the song, I think, and by it. 
Mystic Presences of power 
220 Had up-snatched me to the Timeless, then returned me to 
the Hour. 

XLV 

In a child-abstraction lifted, 
Straightway from the bower I past ; 



THE LOST BOWER 71 

Foot and soul being dimly drifted 
Through the greenwood, till, at last, 
In the hill-top's open sunshine, I all consciously was cast. 225 

XLVI 

Face to face with the true mountains, 
I stood silently and still ; 
Drawing strength from fancy's dauntings, 
From the air about the hill. 
And from Nature's open mercies, and most debonair good- 230 
will. 

XLVII 

Oh ! the golden-hearted daisies 
Witnessed there, before my youth. 
To the truth of things, with praises 
Of the beauty of the truth ; 
And I woke to Nature's real, laughing joyfully for both. 235 

XLVIII 

And I said within me, laughing, 
I have found a bower to-day, 
A green lusus fashioned half in 
Chance, and half in Nature's play — 
And a little bird sings nigh it, I will nevermore missay. 240 

XLIX 

Henceforth, /will be the fairy 
Of this bower, not built by one ; 
I will go there, sad or merry. 
With each morning's benison ; 
And the bird shall be my harper in the dream-hall I have 245 
won. 



72 SELECTED POEMS 



So I said. But the next morning, 
( — Child, look up into my face — 
'Ware, oh sceptic, of your scorning! 
This is truth in its pure grace ;) 
250 The next morning, all had vanished, or my wandering 
missed the place. 

LI 

Bring an oath most sylvan-holy, 
And upon it swear me true — 
By the wind-bells swinging slowly 
Their mute curfews in the dew — 
25s By the advent of the snowdrop — by the rosemary and rue, — 

LII 

I affirm by all or any. 
Let the cause be charm or chance. 
That my wandering searches many 
Missed the bower of my romance — 
260 That I nevermore, upon it, turned my mortal countenance. 

LIII 

I affirm that, since I lost it. 
Never bower has seemed so fair — 
Never garden-creeper crossed it, 
With so deft and brave an air — 
265 Never bird sung in the summer, as I saw and heard them 
there. 

LIV 

Day by day, with new desire, 
Toward my wood I ran in faith — r 



THE LOST BOWER 73 

Under leaf and over brier — 
Through the thickets, out of breath — 
Like the prince who rescued Beauty from the sleep as long 270 
as death. 

LV 

But his sword of mettle clashed, 
And his arm smote strong, I ween; 
And her dreaming spirit flashed 
Through her body's fair white screen, — 
And the light thereof might guide him up the cedar alleys 275 
green. 

LVI 

But for me, I saw no splendour — 
All my sword was my child-heart ; 
And the wood refused surrender 
Of that bower it held apart, 
Safe as CEdipus's grave-place 'mid Colone's olives swart. 280 

LVI I 

As Aladdin sought the basements 
His fair palace rose upon, 
And the four-and-twenty casements 
Which gave answers to the sun ; 
So, in wilderment of gazing, I looked up, and I looked 285 
down. 

LVIII 

Years have vanished since, as wholly 
As the little bower did then ; 
And you call it tender folly 
That such thoughts should come again ? 
Ah ! I cannot change this sighing for your smiling, brother 290 
men ! 



74 SELECTED POEMS 

LIX 

For this loss it did prefigure 
Other loss of better good, 
When my soul, in spirit-vigour 
And in ripened womanhood, 
295 Fell from visions of more beauty than an arbour in a wood. 

LX 

I have lost — oh, many a pleasure — 
Many a hope, and many a power — 
Studious health and merrv leisure — 
The first dew on the first flower ! 
300 But the first of all my losses was the losing of the bower. 

LXI 

I have lost the dream of Doing, 
And the other dream of Done — 
The first spring in the pursuing, 
The first pride in the Begun, — 
305 First recoil from incompletion, in the face of what is won — 

LXII 

Exaltations in the far light. 
Where some cottage only is — 
Mild dejections in the starlight. 
Which the sadder-hearted miss ; 
310 And the child-cheek blushing scarlet, for the very shame of 
bliss. 

LXIII 

I have lost the sound child-sleeping 
Which the thunder could not break ; 



THE LOST BOWER 75 

Something too of the strong leaping 
Of the staglike heart awake, 
Which the pale is low for keeping in the road it ought to 315 
take. 

LXIV 

Some respect to social fictions 
Has been also lost by me ; 
And some generous genuflexions, 
Which my spirit offered free 
To the pleasant old conventions of our false Humanity. 320 

LXV 

All my losses did I tell you, 
Ye perchance would look away ; — 
Ye would answer me, " Farewell ! you 
Make sad company to-day ; 
And your tears are falling faster than the bitter words you 325 
say." 

LXV I 

For God placed me like a dial 
In the open ground, with power; 
And my heart had for its trial. 
All the sun and all the shower ! 
And I suffered many losses ; and my first was of the bower. 330 

LXVII 

Laugh you ? If that loss of mine be 
Of no heavy-seeming weight — 
When the cone falls from the pine-tree. 
The young children laugh thereat ; 
Yet the wind that struck it, riseth, and the tempest shall be 335 
great. 



'j^ SELECTED POEMS 

LXVIII 

One who knew me in my childhood, 
In the glamour and the game, 
Looking on me long and mild, would 
Never know me for the same. 
340 Come, unchanging recollections, where those changes over- 
came. 

LXIX 

By this couch I weakly lie on, 
While I count my memories, — 
Through the fingers which, still sighing, 
I press closely on mine eyes, — 
345 Clear as once beneath the sunshine, I behold the bower 
arise. 

LXX 

Springs the linden-tree as greenly, 
Stroked with light adown its rind — 
And the ivy-leaves serenely 
Each in either intertwined ; 
350 And the rose-trees at the doorway, they have neither grown 
nor pined. 

LXXI 

From those overblown faint roses, 
Not a leaf appeareth shed, 
And that little bud discloses 
Not a thorn 's-breadth more of red, 
355 For the winters and the summers which have passed me 
overhead. 

LXXII 

And that music overfloweth. 
Sudden sweet, the sylvan eaves ; 



THE CRY OF THE CHILDREN ^y 

Thrush or nightingale — who knoweth ? 
Fay or Faunus — who believes ? 
But my heart still trembles in me, to the trembling of the 360 
leaves. 

LXXIII 

Is the bower lost, then? Who sayeth 
That the bower indeed is lost ? 
Hark! my spirit in it prayeth 
Through the sunshine and the frost, — 
And the prayer preserves it greenly, to the last and utter- 365 
most — 

LXXIV 

Till another open for me 
In God's Eden-land unknown, 
With an angel at the doorway. 
White with gazing at His Throne; 
And a saint's voice in the palm-trees, singing — "All is 370 
LOST ... and won /" 



THE CRY OF THE CHILDREN 
"4>eO, 0eu, tI irpoad^pKeffd^ /jl 6/jLixacni>, T^Kva ; " — Medea. 



Do ye hear the children weeping, O my brothers. 

Ere the sorrow comes with years ? 
They are leaning their young heads against their mothers, — 

And f/iat cannot stop their tears. 
The young lambs are bleating in the meadows ; 

The young birds are chirping in the nest ; 
The young fawns are playing with the shadows ; 
The young flowers are blowing toward the west — 



y^ SELECTED POEMS 

But the young, young children, O my brothers, 
lo They are weeping bitterly ! — 

They are weeping in the playtime of the others, 
In the country of the free. 

II 

Do you question the young children in the sorrow, 
Why their tears are falling so ? — 
15 The old man may weep for his to-morrow 
Which is lost in Long Ago — 
The old tree is leafless in the forest — 

The old year is ending in the frost — 
The old wound, if stricken, is the sorest — 
20 The old hope is hardest to be lost : 

But the young, young children, O my brothers, 

Do you ask them why they stand 
Weeping sore before the bosoms of their mothers. 
In our happy Fatherland ? 

Ill 

25 They look up with their pale and sunken faces. 
And their looks are sad to see. 
For the man's hoary anguish draws and presses 

Down the cheeks of infancy — 
" Your old earth," they say, " is very dreary ; 
30 Our young feet," they say, "are very weak! 

Few paces have we taken, yet are weary — 

Our grave-rest is very far to seek. 
Ask the aged why they weep, and not the children. 
For the outside earth is cold, — 
35 And we young ones stand without, in our bewildering, 
And the graves are for the old. 



THE CRY OF THE CHILDREN 79 

IV 

" True," say the children, " it may happen 

That we die before our time. 
Little Alice died last year — her grave is shapen 

Like a snowball, in the rime. 40 

We looked into the pit prepared to take her — 
Was no room for any work in the close clay : 
From the sleep wherein she lieth none will wake her, 

Crying, * Get up, little Alice ! it is day.' 
If you listen by that grave, in sun and shower, 45 

With your ear down, little Alice never cries! — 
Could we see her face, be sure we should not know her. 

For the smile has time for growing in her eyes, — 
And merry go her moments, lulled and stilled in 

The shroud, by the kirk-chime ! 50 

It is good when it happens," say the children, 
" That we die before our time." 



Alas, alas, the children ! they are seeking 

Death in life, as best to have ! 
They are binding up their hearts away from breaking, 55 

With a cerement from the grave. 
Go out, children, from the mine and from the city — 

Sing out, children, as the little thrushes do — 
Pluck your handfuls of the meadow-cowslips pretty — 

Laugh aloud, to feel your fingers let them through ! 60 

But they answer, " Are your cowslips of the meadows 

Like our weeds anear the mine ? 
Leave us quiet in the dark of the coal-shadows. 

From your pleasures fair and fine ! 



80 SELECTED POEMS 

VI 

6s " For oh," say the children, " we are weary. 
And we cannot run or leap — 
If we cared for any meadows, it were merely 

To drop down in them and sleep. 
Our knees tremble sorely in the stooping — 
70 We fall upon our faces, trying to go ; 

And, underneath our heavy eyelids drooping, 

The reddest flower would look as pale as snow. 
For, all day, we drag our burden tiring, 

Through the coal-dark, underground — 
75 Or, all day, we drive the wheels of iron 
In the factories, round and round. 

VII 

'* For, all day, the wheels are droning, turning, — 

Their wind comes in our faces, — 
Till our hearts turn, — our heads with pulses burning, 
80 And the walls turn in their places — 

Turns the sky in the high window blank and reeling — 

Turns the long light that drops adown the wall — 
Turn the black flies that crawl along the ceiling — 
All are turning, all the day, and we with all. — 
85 And all day, the iron wheels are droning ; 
And sometimes we could pray, 
'O ye wheels,' (breaking out in a mad moaning) 
' Stop ! be silent for to-day ! ' " 

VIII 

Ay ! be silent ! Let them hear each other breathing 
90 For a moment, mouth to mouth — 

Let them touch each other's hands, in a fresh wreathing 
Of their tender human youth ! 



THE CRY OF THE CHILDREN 8l 

Let them feel that this cold metallic motion 

Is not all the life God fashions or reveals — 
Let them prove their inward souls against the notion 95 

That they live in you, or under you, O wheels! — 
Still, all day, the iron wheels go onward, 
Grinding life down from its mark ; 
And the children's souls, which God is calling sunward, 

Spin on blindly in the dark. 100 

IX 

Now tell the poor young children, O my brothers, 

To look up to Him and pray — 
So the blessed One, who blesseth all the others. 

Will bless them another day. 
They answer, " Who is God that He should hear us, 105 

While the rushing of the iron wheels is stirred .-* 
When we sob aloud, the human creatures near us 

Pass by, hearing not, or answer not a word ! 
And we hear not (for the wheels in their resounding) 

Strangers speaking at the door : no 

Is it likely God, with angels singing round Him, 

Hears our weeping any more .'' 

X 

*'Two words, indeed, of praying we remember; 

And at midnight's hour of harm, — 
' Our Father,' looking upward in the chamber, 115 

We say softly for a charm. ^ 

1 A fact rendered pathetically historical by Mr. Home's report of his 
commission. The name of the poet of " Orion " and " Cosmo de' 
Medici" has, however, a change of associations, and comes in time 
to remind me that we have some noble poetic heat of literature still, 
— however we may be open to the reproach of being somewhat gelid in 
our humanity. 



82 SELECTED POEMS 

We know no other words except * Our Father/ 

And we think that, in some pause of angels' song, 
God may pluck them with the silence sweet to gather, 
I20 And hold both within His right hand which is strong. 

' Our Father!' If He heard us, He would surely 

(For they call Him good and mild) 
Answer, smiling down the steep world very purely, 
' Come and rest with me, my child.' 

XI 

I2S " But, no ! " say the children, weeping faster, 
" He is speechless as a stone ; 
And they tell us, of His image is the master 

Who commands us to work on. 
Go to!" say the children, — "Up in Heaven, 
130 Dark, wheel-like, turning clouds are all we find. 

Do not mock us ; grief has made us unbelieving — 

We look up for God, but tears have made us blind." 
Do you hear the children weeping and disproving, 
O my brothers, what ye preach? 
135 For God's possible is taught by His world's loving — 
And the children doubt of each. 



XII 

And well may the children weep before you; 

They are weary ere they run ; 
They have never seen the sunshine, nor the glory 
140 Which is brighter than the sun : 

They know the grief of man, but not the wisdom ; 
They sink in man's despair, without its calm — 
Are slaves, without the liberty in Christdom, — 
Are martyrs, by the pang without the palm, — 



4 



WINE OF CYPRUS 83 

Are worn, as if with age, yet unretrievingly 145 

No dear remembrance keep, — 
Are orphans of the earthly love and heavenly : 

Let them weep ! Let them weep 1 

XIII 

They look up, with their pale and sunken faces, 

And their look is dread to see, 150 

For they mind you of their angels in high places. 

With eyes turned on Deity; — 
" How long," they say, "how long, O cruel nation. 

Will you stand, to move the world, on a child's heart, — 
Stifle down with a mailed heel its palpitation, 'ss 

And tread onward to your throne amid the mart? 
Our blood splashes upward, O our tyrants. 

And your purple shows your path ; 
But the child's sob curseth deeper in the silence 

Than the strong man in his wrath ! " 160 



WINE OF CYPRUS 

[given to MR BY H. S. UOYD, ESQ., AUTHOR OF " SKLKCT PASSAGES 

FROM TMK GREEK FATHERS," ETC., TO WHOM THESE 

STANZAS ARE ADDRESSED.] 

I 

If old Bacchus were the speaker, 

He would tell you, with a sigh. 
Of the Cyprus in this beaker, 

I am sipping like a fly, — 
Like a fly or gnat on Ida 

At the hour of goblet-pledge, 
By queen Juno brushed aside, a 

Full white arm-sweep, from the edge. 



84 SELECTED POEMS 

II 
Sooth the drinking should be ampler, 
lo When the drink is so divine ; 

And some deep-mouthed Greek exampler 

Would become your Cyprian wine ! 
Cyclops' mouth might plunge aright in, 
While his one eye over-leered — 
15 Nor too large were mouth of Titan, 

Drinking rivers down his beard. 

in 

Pan might dip his head so deep in. 
That his ears alone pricked out ; 

Fauns around him, pressing, leaping, 
2o Each one pointing to his throat: 

While the Naiads, like Bacchantes, 
Wild, with urns thrown out to waste, 

Cry, — " O earth, that thou wouldst grant us 
Springs to keep, of such a taste ! " 

IV 

25 But for me, I am not worthy 

After gods and Greeks to drink ; 
And my lips are pale and earthy. 
To go bathing from this brink. 
Since you heard them speak the last time, 
30 They have faded from their blooms; 

And the laughter of my pastime 
Has learnt silence at the tombs. 



Ah, my friend ! the antique drinkers 

Crowned the cup and crowned the brow. 



WINE OF CYPRUS 85 

Can I answer the old thinkers 

In the forms they thought of, now ? 

Who will fetch from garden-closes 
Some new garlands while I speak, 

That the forehead, crowned with roses, 
May strike scarlet down the cheek ? 

VI 

Do not mock me ! with my mortal, 

Suits no wreath again, indeed : 
I am sad-voiced as the turtle. 

Which Anacreon used to feed : 
Yet as that same bird demurely 

Wet her beak in cup of his, — 
So, without a garland, surely 

I may touch the brim of this. 

VII 

Go ! — let others praise the Chian ! — 

This is soft as Muses' string — 
This is tawny as Rhea's lion. 

This is rapid as his spring, — 
Bright as Paphia's eyes e'er met us, 

Light as ever trod her feet ! 
And the brown bees of Hymettus 

Make their honey not so sweet. 

VIII 

Very copious are my praises. 

Though I sip it like a fly ! — 
Ah — but, sipping, — times and places 

Change before me suddenly 



35 



40 



45 



so 



55 



60 



86 SELECTED POEMS 

As Ulysses' old libation 

Drew the ghosts from every part, 

So your Cyprus wine, dear Grecian, 
Stirs the Hades of my heart. 

IX 

6s And I think of those long mornings 

Which my thought goes far to seek. 
When, betwixt the folio's turnings. 

Solemn flowed the rhythmic Greek : 
Past the pane the mountain spreading, 
70 Swept the sheep's-bell's tinkling noise, 

While a girlish voice was reading, 
Somewhat low for at's and ot's. 

X 

Then, what golden hours were for us ! — 
While we sate together there ; 
75 How the white vests of the chorus 

Seemed to wave up a live air ! 
How the cothurns trod majestic 
Down the deep iambic lines ; 
And the rolling anapaestic 
80 Curled, like vapour over shrines! 

XI 

Oh, our ^schylus, the thunderous ! 

How he drove the bolted breath 
Through the cloud, to wedge it ponderous 

In the gnarled oak beneath ! 
8s Oh, our Sophocles, the royal. 

Who was born to monarch's place — 
And who made the whole world loyal, 

Less by kingly power than grace. 



WINE OF CYPRUS 8/ 

XII 

Our Euripides, the human — 

With his droppings of warm tears ; 
And his touches of things common, 

Till they rose to touch the spheres ! 
Our Theocritus, our Bion, 

And our Pindar's shining goals ! — 
These were cup-bearers undying 

Of the wine that 's meant for souls. 

XIII 

And my Plato, the divine one, — 

If men know the gods aright 
By their motions as they shine on 

With a glorious trail of light ! — , 

And your noble Christian bishops, 

Who mouthed grandly the last Greek : 
Though the sponges on their hyssops 

Were distent with wine — too weak. 

XIV 

Yet, your Chrysostom, you praised him, 

With his glorious mouth of gold ; 
And your Basil, you upraised him 

To the height of speakers old : 
And we both praised Heliodorus 

For his secret of pure lies ; — 
Who forged first his linked stories 

In the heat of lady's eyes. 



XV 



And we both praised your Synesius, 
For the fire shot up his odes ; 



go 



95 



loS 



8S SELECTED POEMS 

IIS Though the Church was scarce propitious, 

As he whistled dogs and gods. — 
And we both praised Nazianzen, 

For the fervid heart and speech : 
Only I eschewed his glancing 
I20 At the lyre hung out of reach. 

XVI 

Do you mind that deed of Ate, 

Which you bound me to so fast, — 
Reading " De Virginitate," 

From the first line to the last ? 
125 How I said at ending, solemn 

As I turned and looked at you, 
That St. Simeon on the column 

Had had somewhat less to do ? 

XVII 

For we sometimes gently wrangled ; 
130 Very gently, be it said, — 

Since our thoughts were disentangled 

By no breaking of the thread ! 
And I charged you with extortions 
On the nobler fames of old — 
135 Ay, and sometimes thought your Porsons 

Stained the purple they would fold. 

XVIII 

For the rest — a mystic moaning, 

Kept Cassandra at the gate. 
With wild eyes the vision shone in — 
140 And wide nostrils scenting fate. 



WINE OF CYPRUS 89 

And Prometheus, bound in passion 

By brute Force to the blind stone, 
Showed us looks of invocation 

Turned to ocean and the sun. 

XIX 

And Medea we saw, burning 145 

At her nature's planted stake ; 
And proud CEdipus, fate-scorning, 

While the cloud came on to break — 
While the cloud came on slow — slower, 

Till he stood discrowned, resigned ! — 150 

But the reader's voice dropped lower 

When the poet called him blind ! 

XX 

Ah, my gossip ! you were older. 

And more learned, and a man ! — 
Yet that shadow — the enfolder 155 

Of your quiet eyelids — ran 
Both our spirits to one level ; 

And I turned from hill and lea 
And the summer sun's green revel, — 

To your eyes that could not see. 160 

XXI 

Now Christ bless you with the one light 

Which goes shining night and day ! 
May the flowers which grow in sunlight 

Shed their fragrance in your way ! 
Is it not right to remember 165 

All your kindness, friend of mine, — 
When we two sate in the chamber, 

And the poets poured us wine? 



90 SELECTED POEMS 

XXII 

So, to come back to the drinking 
170 Of this Cyprus : — it is well, — 

But those memories, to my thinking. 

Make a better oenomel ; 
And whoever be the speaker. 

None can murmur with a sigh — 
175 That, in drinking from that beaker, 

I am sipping like a fly. 



THE ROMANCE OF THE SWAN'S NEST 

So the dreams depart, 
So the fading phantoms flee, 
And the sharp reaUty 
Now must act its part. 

Westwood's Beads from a Rosary. 



Little EUie sits alone 
Mid the beeches of a meadow. 

By a stream-side, on the grass: 

And the trees are showering down 
Doubles of their leaves in shadow. 

On her shining hair and face. 

II 

She has thrown her bonnet by : 
And her feet she has been dipping 

In the shallow water's flow — 

Now she holds them nakedly 
In her hands, all sleek and dripping. 

While she rocketh to and fro. 



THE ROMANCE OF THE SWAN'S NEST 91 

III 

Little Ellie sits alone, — 
And the smile, she softly useth. 

Fills the silence like a speech ; is 

While she thinks what shall be done, — 
And the sweetest pleasure chooseth, 

For her future within reach. 

IV 

Little Ellie in her smile 
Chooseth ..." I will have a lover, 20 

Riding on a steed of steeds ! 

He shall love me without guile ; 
And to him I Mill discover 

That swan's nest among the reeds. 



" And the steed shall be red-roan, 25 

And the lover shall be noble. 

With an eye that takes the breath, — 

And the lute he plays upon 
Shall strike ladies into trouble. 

As his sword strikes men to death. 30 

VI 

" And the steed, it shall be shod 
All in silver, housed in azure. 

And the mane shall skim the wind ; 

And the hoofs, along the sod. 
Shall flash onward and keep measure, 35 

Till the shepherds look behind. 



92 SELECTED POEMS 

VII 

" But my lover will not prize 
All the glory that he rides in, 
When he gazes in my face. 
40 He will say, ' O Love, thine eyes 

Build the shrine my soul abides in ; 
And I kneel here for thy grace.' 

VIII 

" Then, ay, then — he shall kneel low, 
With the red-roan steed anear him, 
45 Which shall seem to understand — 

Till I answer, ' Rise and go ! 
For the world must love and fear him 
Whom I gift with heart and hand.' 

IX 

" Then he will arise so pale, 
50 I shall feel my own lips tremble 

With a j'cs I must not say — 
Nathless, maiden-brave, ' Farewell,' 
I will utter, and dissemble — 

' Light to-morrow with to-day.' 

X 

55 " Then he will ride through the hills 

To the wide world past the river, 
There to put away all wrong ; 
To make straight distorted wills, 
And to empty the broad quiver 
60 Which the wicked bear along. 



I 



THE ROMANCE OF THE SWAN'S NEST 93 

XI 

" Three times shall a young foot-page 
Swim the stream, and climb the mountain, 

And kneel down beside my feet — 

' Lo ! my master sends this gage, 
Lady, for thy pity's counting ! 65 

What wilt thou exchange for it ? ' 

XII 

"And the first time, I will send 
A white rosebud for a guerdon, — 

And the second time, a glove ; 

But the third time, I may bend 70 

From my pride, and answer — ' Pardon — 

If he come to take my love.' 

XIII 

" Then the young foot-page will run — 
Then my lover will ride faster. 

Till he kneeleth at my knee : 75 

' I am a duke's eldest son ! 
Thousand serfs do call me master — 

But, O Love, I love but thee T 

XIV 

'' He will kiss me on the mouth 
Then, and lead me as a lover, 80 

Through the crowds that praise his deeds : 

And, when soul-tied by one troth. 
Unto him I will discover 

That swan's nest among the reeds." 



94 SELECTED POEMS 

XV 

85 Little Ellie, with her smile 

Not yet ended, rose up gaily, — 

Tied the bonnet, donned the shoe, — 
And went homeward, round a mile, 
Just to see, as she did daily, 
90 What more eggs were with the two 

XVI 

Pushing through the elm-tree copse. 
Winding by the stream, light-hearted, 
Where the osier pathway leads — 
Past the boughs she stoops — and stops 
9,s Lo ! the wild swan had deserted — 

And a rat had gnawed the reeds. 

XVII 

Ellie went home sad and slow ; 
If she found the lover ever. 

With his red-roan steed of steeds, 
100 Sooth I know not ! but I know 

She could never show him — never, 

That swan's nest among the reeds ! 



THE DEAD PAN 95 



THE DEAD PAN 

Excited by Schiller's " Gotter Griechenlands," and partly founded on a well- 
known tradition mentioned in a treatise of Plutarch (" De Oraculorum Defectu "), 
according to which, at the hour of the Saviour's agony, a cry of " Great Pan is 
dead ! " swept across the waves in the hearing of certain mariners, — and the 
oracles ceased. 

It is in all veneration to the memory of the deathless Schiller, that I oppose 
a doctrine still more dishonouring to poetry than to Christianity. 

As Mr. Kenyon's graceful and harmonious paraphrase of the German poem 
was the first occasion of the turning of my thoughts in this direction, I take 
advantage of the pretence to indulge my feelings (which overflow on other 
grounds) by inscribing my lyric to that dear friend and relative, with the earnest- 
ness of appreciating esteem as well as of affectionate gratitude. — E. B. B. 

Gods of Hellas, gods of Hellas, 

Can ye listen in your silence ? 

Can your mystic voices tell us 

Where ye hide? In floating islands, 

With a wind that evermore 5 

Keeps you out of sight of shore? 

Pan, Pan is dead. 

In what revels are ye sunken 

In old Ethiopia ? 

Have the Pygmies made you drunken, 10 

Bathing in mandragora 

Your divine pale lips that shiver 

Like the lotus in the river ? 

Pan, Pan is dead. 

Do ye sit there still in slumber, is 

In gigantic Alpine rows ? 

The black poppies out of number 

Nodding, dripping from your brows 



96 SELECTED POEMS ' 

To the red lees of your wine, — 
20 And so kept alive and fine ? 

Pan, Pan is dead. 

Or lie crushed your stagnant corses 
Where the silver spheres roll on. 
Stung to life by centric forces 
25 Thrown like rays out from the sun ? — 

While the smoke of your old altars 
Is the shroud that round you welters ? 

Great Pan is dead. 

"Gods of Hellas, gods of Hellas," 
30 Said the old Hellenic tongue ! 

Said the hero-oaths, as well as 

Poets' songs the sweetest sung! 

Have ye grown deaf in a day? 

Can ye speak not yea or nay — 
35 Since Pan is dead? 

Do ye leave your rivers flowing 
All alone, O Naiades, 
While your drenched locks dry slow in 
This cold feeble sun and breeze ? — 
40 Not a word the Naiads say, 

Though the rivers run for aye — 

For Pan is dead. 

From the gloaming of the oak-wood, 
O ye Dryads, could ye flee ? 
45 At the rushing thunder-stroke, would 

No sob tremble through the tree ? — 
Not a word the Dryads say. 
Though the forests wave for aye — 

For Pan is dead. 



THE DEAD PAN 97 

Have ye left the mountain places so 

Oreads wild, for other tryst? 
Shall we see no sudden faces 
Strike a glory through the mist ? 
Not a sound the silence thrills, 
Of the everlasting hills. 55 

Pan, Pan is dead. 

O twelve gods of Plato's vision, 

Crowned to starry wanderings, — 

With your chariots in procession, 

And your silver clash of wings ! 60 

Very pale ye seem to rise, 

Ghosts of Grecian deities — 

Now Pan is dead ! 

Jove ! that right hand is unloaded, 

Whence the thunder did prevail : 65 

While in idiocy of godhead 

Thou art staring the stars pale ! 

And thine eagle, blind and old. 

Roughs his feathers in the cold. 

Pan, Pan is dead. 70 

Where, O Juno, is the glory 

Of thy regal look and tread ? 

Will they lay, for evermore, thee, 

On thy dim, straight, golden bed ? 

Will thy queendom all lie hid 7S 

Meekly under either lid? 

Pan, Pan is dead. 

Ha, Apollo ! Floats his golden 
Hair, all mist-like where he stands ; 



98 SELECTED POEMS 

80 While the Muses hang enfolding 

Knee and foot with faint wild hands ? 
'Neath the clanging of thy bow, 
Niobe looked lost as thou ! 

Pan, Pan is dead. 

85 Shall the casque with its brown iron, 

Pallas' broad blue eyes, eclipse, — 
And no hero take inspiring 
From the God-Greek of her lips ? 
'Neath her olive dost thou sit, 

90 Mars the mighty, cursing it ? 

Pan, Pan is dead. 

Bacchus, Bacchus ! on the panther 
He swoons, — bound with his own vines ! 
And his Maenads slowly saunter, 
95 Head aside, among the pines. 

While they murmur dreamingly, — 
" Evohe — ah — evohe — ! " 

Ah, Pan is dead ! 

Neptune lies beside the trident, 
100 Dull and senseless as a stone ; 

And old Pluto deaf and silent 

Is cast out into the sun. 

Ceres smileth stern thereat, — 

" We all now are desolate — 
10s Now Pan is dead." 

Aphrodite ! dead and driven 
As thy native foam, thou art ; 
With the cestus long done heaving 
On the white calm of thine heart ! 



THE DEAD PAN 99 

Ai Adonis ! At that shriek, no 

Not a tear runs down her cheek — 

Pan, Pan is dead. 

And the Loves, we used to know from 

One another, — huddled lie, 

Frore as taken in a snow-storm, 115 

Close beside her tenderly, — 

As if each had weakly tried 

Once to kiss her as he died. 

Pan, Pan is dead. 

What, and Hermes ? Time enthralleth 120 

All thy cunning, Hermes, thus, — 
And the ivy blindly crawleth 
Round thy brave caduceus 1 
Hast thou no new message for us. 
Full of thunder and Jove-glories ? 123 

Nay ! Pan is dead. 

Crowned Cybele's great turret 

Rocks and crumbles on her head : 

Roar the lions of her chariot 

Toward the wilderness, unfed : 130 

Scornful children are not mute, — 

''Mother, mother, walk afoot — 

Since Pan is dead ! " 

In the fiery-hearted centre 

Of the solemn universe, 135 

Ancient Vesta, — who could enter 

To consume thee with this curse ? 

Drop thy grey chin on thy knee, 

O thou palsied Mystery ! 

For Pan is dead. 140 



.^r. 



lOO SELECTED POEMS 

Gods ! we vainly do adjure you, — 
Ye return nor voice nor sign : 
Not a votary could secure you 
Even a grave for your Divine ! 
145 Not a grave, to show thereby, 

Here these grey old gods do lie. 

Pan, Pan is dead. 

Even that Greece who took your wages. 
Calls the obolus outworn : 
150 And the hoarse deep-throated ages 

Laugh your godships unto scorn — 
And the poets do disclaim you. 
Or grow colder if they name you — 

And Pan is dead. 

155 Gods bereaved, gods belated, — 

With your purples rent asunder ! 

Gods discrowned and desecrated. 

Disinherited of thunder ! 

Now, the goats may climb and crop 
'60 The soft grass on Ida's top — 

Now Pan is dead. 

Calm, of old, the bark went onward, 
When a cry more loud than wind. 
Rose up, deepened, and swept sunward, 
165 From the piled Dark behind; 

And the sun shrank and grew pale, 
Breathed against by the great wail — 

"Pan, Pan is dead.'' 

And the rowers from the benches 
170 Fell, — each shuddering on his face — 



THE DEAD PAN 



lOI 



While departing Influences 

Struck a cold back through the place ; 

And the shadow of the ship 

Reeled along the passive deep 

Pan, Pan is dead. 

And that dismal cry rose slowly, 
And sank slowly through the air; 
Full of spirit's melancholy 
And eternity's despair ! 
And they heard the words it said — 
Pan is dead — Great Pan is dead — 

Pan, Pan is dead. 

'Twas the hour when One in Sion 
Hung for love's sake on a cross — 
When His brow was chill with dying, 
And His soul was faint with loss ; 
When His priestly blood dropped downward, 
And His kingly eyes looked throneward — 

Then, Pan was dead. 

By the love He stood alone in. 
His sole Godhead rose complete : 
And the false gods fell down moaning, 

Each from off his golden seat 

All the false gods with a cry 
Rendered up their deity — 

Pan, Pan was dead. 

Wailing wide across the islands. 
They rent, vest-like, their Divine! 
And a darkness and a silence 
Quenched the light of every shrine ; 



175 



180 



190 



195 



I02 SELECTED POEMS 

And Dodona's oak swang lonely 
Henceforth, to the tempest only. 

Pan, Pan was dead. 

Pythia staggered, — feeling o'er her 
205 Her lost god's forsaking look! 

Straight her eyeballs filmed with horror, 
And her crispy fillets shook — 
And her lips gasped through their foam, 
For a word that did not come. 
210 Pan, Pan was dead. 

O ye vain false gods of Hellas, 
Ye are silent evermore! 
And I dash down this old chalice, 
Whence libations ran of yore. 
215 See! the wine crawls in the dust 

Wormlike — as your glories must ! 

Since Pan is dead. 

Get to dust, as common mortals, 
By a common doom and track ! 
220 Let no Schiller from the portals 

Of that Hades, call you back, — 
Or instruct us to weep all 
At your antique funeral. 

Pan, Pan is dead. 

225 By your beauty, which confesses 

Some chief Beauty conquering you, — 
By our grand heroic guesses. 
Through your falsehood, at the True, — 
We will weep 7iot . . . / earth shall roll 

230 Heir to each god's aureole — 

And Pan is dead. 



THE DEAD PAN 103 

Earth outgrows the mythic fancies 

Sung beside her in her youth: 

And those debonair romances 

Sound but dull beside the truth. 235 

Phoebus' chariot-course is run ! 

Look up, poets, to the sun ! 

Pan, Pan is dead. 

Christ hath sent us down the angels ; 

And the whole earth and the skies 240 

Are illumed by altar-candles 

Lit for blessed mysteries ; 

And a Priest's Hand through creation 

Waveth calm and consecration — 

And Pan is dead. 245 

Truth is fair : should we forgo it ? 

Can we sigh right for a wrong ? 

God Himself is the best Poet, 

And the Real is His song. 

Sing His truth out fair and full, 250 

And secure His beautiful. 

Let Pan be dead. 

Truth is large. Our aspiration 

Scarce embraces half we be. 

Shame ! to stand in His creation 255 

And doubt Truth's sufficiency ! — 

To think God's song unexcelling 

The poor tales of our own telling — 

When Pan is dead ! 

What is true and just and honest, 260 

What is lovely, what is pure — 

All of praise that hath admonisht, — 



I04 SELECTED POEMS 

All of virtue, shall endure, — 
These are themes for poets' uses, 
265 Stirring nobler than the Muses — 

Ere Pan was dead. 

O brave poets, keep back nothing, 
Nor mix falsehood with the whole ! 
Look up Godward ! speak the truth in 
270 Worthy song from earnest soul ! 

Hold, in high poetic duty. 
Truest Truth the fairest Beauty ! 

Pan, Pan is dead. 



A MUSICAL INSTRUMENT 

What was he doing, the great god Pan, 

Down in the reeds by the river ? 
Spreading ruin and scattering ban. 
Splashing and paddling with hoofs of a goat, 
5 And breaking the golden lilies afloat 

With the dragon-fly on the river. 

He tore out a reed, the great god Pan, 
From the deep cool bed of the river : 

The limpid water turbidly ran, 
10 And the broken lilies a-dying lay, 

And the dragon-fly had fled away, 

Ere he brought it out of the river. 

High on the shore sat the great god Pan, 
While turbidly flowed the river; 
IS And hacked and hewed as a great god can. 

With his hard bleak steel at the patient reed. 



A MUSICAL INSTRUMENT 105 

Till there was not a sign of a leaf indeed 
To prove it fresh from the river. 

He cut it short, did the great god Pan, 

(How tall it stood in the river!) 20 

Then drew the pith, like the heart of a man, 
Steadily from the outside ring. 
And notched the poor dry empty thing 

In holes, as he sat by the river. 

"This is the way," laughed the great god Pan, 25 

(Laughed while he sat by the river), 
" The only way, since gods began 
To make sweet music, they could succeed." 
Then dropping his mouth to a hole in the reed, 

He blew in power by the river. 30 

Sweet, sweet, sweet, O Pan ! 

Piercing sweet by the river ! 
Blinding sweet, O great god Pan ! 
The sun on the hill forgot to die, 
And the lilies revived, (and the dragon-fly 35 

Came back to dream on the river.;) 

Yet half a beast is the great god Pan, 

To laugh as he sits by the river. 
Making a poet out of a man : 

The true gods sigh for the cost and pain, — 40 

For the reed which grows nevermore again 

As a reed with the reeds in the river. 



I06 SELECTED POEMS 

SIX SONNETS FROM THE SERIES ENTITLED 
"SONNETS FROM THE PORTUGUESE" 

I 

I thought once how Theocritus had sung 

Of the sweet years, the dear and wished-for years, 

Who each one in a gracious hand appears 

To bear a gift for mortals, old or young : 

And, as I mused it in his antique tongue, 

I saw, in gradual vision through my tears, 

The sweet, sad years, the melancholy years, . . . 

Those of my own life, who by turns had flung 

A shadow across me. Straightway I was 'ware, 

So weeping, how a mystic Shape did move 

Behind me, and drew me backward by the hair ; 

And a voice said in mastery, while I strove, 

"Guessnow who holds thee ?" — "Death !" I said. But, there, 

The silver answer rang, . . . "Not Death, but Love." 

X 

Yet, love, mere love, is beautiful indeed 

And worthy of acceptation. Fire is bright. 

Let temple burn, or flax! An equal light 

Leaps on the flame from cedar-plank or weed. 

And love is fire: and when I say at need 

I love thee . . . mark! . . . I love thee! ... in thy sight 

I stand transfigured, glorified aright. 

With conscience of the new rays that proceed 

Out of my face toward thine. There 's nothing low 

In love, when love the lowest: meanest creatures 

Who love God, God accepts while loving so. 

And what Ifeel, across the inferior features 

Of what I a?n, doth flash itself, and show 

How that great work of Love enhances Nature's. 



SONNETS FROM THE PORTUGUESE 107 

XIV 

If thou must love me, let it be for nought 

Except for love's sake only. Do not say, 

" I love her for her smile . . . her look . . . her way 

Of speaking gently, ... for a trick of thought 

That falls in well with mine, and certes brought 

A sense of pleasant ease on such a day" — 

For these things in themselves. Beloved, may 

Be changed, or change for thee, — and love so wrought. 

May be unwrought so. Neither love me for 

Thine own dear pity's wiping my cheeks dry, 

A creature might forget to weep, who bore 

Thy comfort long, and lose thy love thereby. 

But love me for love's sake, that evermore 

Thou may'st love on through love's eternity. 

XX 

Beloved, my Beloved, when I think 

That thou wast in the world a year ago, 

What time I sate alone here in the snow 

And saw no footprint, heard the silence sink 

No moment at thy voice, . . . but, link by link. 

Went counting all my chains, as if that so 

They never could fall off at any blow 

Struck by thy possible hand . . . why, thus I drink 

Of life's great cup of wonder. Wonderful, 

Never to feel thee thrill the day or night 

With personal act or speech, — nor ever cull 

Some prescience of thee with the blossoms white 

Thou sawest growing ! Atheists are as dull. 

Who cannot guess God's presence out of sight. 



I08 SELECTED POEMS 



XXVI 



I lived with visions for my company 

Instead of men and women, years ago, 

And found them gentle mates, nor thought to know 

A sweeter music than they played to me. 

But soon their trailing purple was not free 

Of this world's dust, — their lutes did silent grow, 

And I myself grew faint and blind below 

Their vanishing eyes. Then Thou didst come ... to he. 

Beloved, what they seemed. Their shining fronts, 

Their songs, their splendours . . . (better, yet the same, . . 

As river-water hallowed into fonts . • • ) 

Met in thee, and from out thee overcame 

My soul with satisfaction of all wants — 

Because God's gifts put man's best dreams to shame. 

XLIII 

How do I love thee.'* Let me count the ways. 

I love thee to the depth and breadth and height 

My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight 

For the ends of Being and ideal Grace. 

I love thee to the level of every day's 

Most quiet need, by sun and candlelight. 

I love thee freely, as men strive for Right ; 

I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise; 

I love thee with the passion put to use 

In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith ; 

I love thee with a love I seemed to lose 

With my lost saints, — I love thee with the breath, 

Smiles, tears, of all my life ! — and if God choose, 

I shall but love thee better after death. 



EXAGGERATION 109 



EXAGGERATION 



We overstate the ills of life, and take 
Imagination, given us to bring down 
The choirs of singing angels overshone 
By God's clear glory — down our earth to rake 
The dismal snows instead ; flake following flake, 
To cover all the corn. We walk upon 
The shadow of hills across a level thrown. 
And pant like climbers. Near the alderbrake 
We sigh so loud, the nightingale within 
Refuses to sing loud, as else she would. 
O brothers! let us leave the shame and sin 
Of taking vainly, in a plaintive mood. 
The holy name of Grief ! — holy herein. 
That, by the grief of One, came all our good. 

ADEQUACY 

Now, by the verdure on thy thousand hills, 
Beloved England, doth the earth appear 
Quite noble enough for men to overbear 
The will of God in, with rebellious wills ! 
We cannot say the morning-sun fulfils 
Ingloriously its course ; nor that the clear 
Strong stars, without significance, insphere 
Our habitation. We, meantime, our ills 
Heap up against this good; and lift a cry 
Against this work-day world, this ill-spread feast. 
As if ourselves were better certainly 
Than what we come to. Maker and High Priest, 
I ask Thee not my joys to multiply, — 
Only to make me worthier of the least. 



no SELECTED POEMS 



INSUFFICIENCY 



When I attain to utter forth in verse 

Some inward thought, my soul throbs audibly 

Along my pulses, yearning to be free 

And something farther, fuller, higher, rehearse, 

To the individual, true, and the universe, 

In consummation of right harmony. 

But, like a wind-exposed, distorted tree. 

We are blown against for ever by the curse 

Which breathes through nature. Oh, the world is weak 

The effluence of each is false to all ; 

And what we best conceive, we fail to speak. 

Wait, soul, until thine ashen garments fall ! 

And then resume thy broken strains, and seek 

Fit peroration, without let or thrall. 



LIFE AND LOVE 



Fast this Life of mine was dying, 
Blind already and calm as death ; 

Snowfiakes on her bosom lying, 
Scarcely heaving with her breath. 

II 

Love came by, and having known her 
In a dream of fabled lands, 

Gently stooped, and laid upon her 
Mystic chrism of holy hands ; 



INCLUSIONS III 

III 

Drew his smile across her folded 

Eyelids, as the swallow dips, ... lo 

Breathed as finely as the cold did, 

Through the locking of her lips. 

IV 

So, when Life looked upward, being 
Warmed and breathed on from above, 

What sight could she have for seeing, 15 

Evermore . . . but only Love? 

INCLUSIONS 

Oh, wilt thou have my hand. Dear, to lie along in thine? 
As a little stone in a running stream, it seems to lie and 

pine ! 
Now drop the poor pale hand, Dear, . . . unfit to plight 

with thine. 

Oh, wilt thou have my cheek. Dear, drawn closer to thine 

own ? 
My cheek is white, my cheek is worn, by many a tear run s 

down. 
Now leave a little space, Dear, . . . lest it should wet thine 

own. 

Oh, must thou have my soul. Dear, commingled with thy 

soul? — 
Red grows the cheek, and warm the hand, . . . the part is 

in the whole ! . . . 
Nor hands nor cheeks keep separate, when soul is joined to 

soul. 



112 SELECTED POEMS 

A DENIAL 

We have met late — it is too late to meet, 
O friend, not more than friend! 

Death's forecome shroud is tangled round my feet. 

And if I step or stir, I touch the end. 
5 In this last jeopardy 

Can I approach thee, I, who cannot move? 

How shall I answer thy request for love? 
Look in my face and see. 

I love thee not, I dare not love thee ! go 
lo In silence ; drop my hand. 

If thou seek roses, seek them where they blow 
In garden-alleys, not in desert-sand. 
Can life and death agree. 
That thou shouldst stoop thy song to my complaint? 
15 I cannot love thee. If the word is faint, 
Look in my face and see. 

I might have loved thee in some former days. 

Oh, then my spirits had leapt 
As now they sink, at hearing thy love-praise ! 
20 Before these faded cheeks were overwept. 

Had this been asked of me. 
To love thee with my whole strong heart and head, — 
I should have said still . . . yes, but smiled and said, 

" Look in my face and see ! " 

25 But now . . . God sees me, God, who took my heart 
And drowned it in life's surge. 
In all your wide warm earth I have no part — 
A light song overcomes me like a dirge. 
Could Love's great harmony 



A DENIAL 



113 



The saints keep step to when their bonds are loose, 30 

Not weigh me down? am /a wife to choose? 
Look in my face and see — 

While I behold as plain as one who dreams, 

Some woman of full worth. 
Whose voice, as cadenced as a silver stream's, 35 

Shall prove the fountain-soul which sends it forth 

One younger, more thought-free 
And fair and gay than I thou must forget, 
With brighter eyes than these . . . which are not wet . . . 

Look in my face and see. 40 

So farewell thou, whom I have known too late 

To let thee come so near. 
Be counted happy while men call thee great. 
And one beloved woman feels thee dear ! — 
* Not I ! — that cannot be. 4S 

I am lost, I am changed, — I must go farther, where 
The change shall take me worse, and no one dare 

Look in my face and see. 

Meantime I bless thee. By these thoughts of mine 

I bless thee from all such ! 50 

I bless thy lamp to oil, thy cup to wine. 

Thy hearth to joy, thy hand to an equal touch 
Of loyal troth. For me, 

I love thee not, I love thee not ! — away ! 

Here 's no more courage in my soul to say 55 

" Look in my face and see." 



114 SELECTED POEMS 



PROOF AND DISPROOF 

Dost thou love me, my Beloved? 

Who shall answer yes or no? 
What is proved or disproved 
When my soul inquireth so, 
5 Dost thou love me, my Beloved? 

I have seen thy heart to-day, 
Never open to the crowd, 

While to love me aye and aye 
Was the vow as it was vowed 
lo By thine eyes of steadfast grey. 

Now I sit alone, alone — 

And the hot tears break and burn. 

Now, Beloved, thou art gone, 

Doubt and terror have their turn. 
IS Is it love that I have known? 

I have known some bitter things, — 

Anguish, anger, solitude. 
Year by year an evil brings, 
Year by year denies a good ; 
20 March winds violate my springs. 

I have known how sickness bends, 

I have known how sorrow breaks. 
How quick hopes have sudden ends, 
How the heart thinks till it aches 
25 Of the smile of buried friends. 



PROOF AND DISPROOF 

Last I have known thee, my brave 
Noble thinker, lover, doer! 

The best knowledge last I have. 
But thou comest as the thrower 

Of fresh flowers upon a grave. 

Count what feelings used to move me ! 

Can this love assort with those? 
Thou, who art so far above me, 

Wilt thou stoop so, for repose? 
Is it true that thou canst love me? 

Do not blame me if I doubt thee. 

I can call love by its name 
When thine arm is wrapt about me; 

But even love seems not the same, 
When I sit alone, without thee. 

In thy clear eyes I descried 
Many a proof of love, to-day ; 

But to-night, those unbelied 

Speechful eyes being gone away. 

There 's the proof to seek, beside. 

Dost thou love me, my Beloved? 

Only thou canst answer yes ! 
And, thou gone, the proof 's disproved. 

And the cry rings answerless — 
Dost thou love me, my Beloved? 



115 



30 



35 



4c 



45 



5° 



Il6 SELECTED POEMS 

QUESTION AND ANSWER 

Love you seek for, presupposes 
Summer heat and sunny glow. 

Tell me, do you find moss-roses 
Budding, blooming in the snow? 

Snow might kill the rose-tree's root - 

Shake it quickly from your foot, 
Lest it harm you as you go. 

From the ivy where it dapples 
A grey ruin, stone by stone, 

Do you look for grapes or apples. 
Or for sad green leaves alone? 

Pluck the leaves off, two or three — 

Keep them for morality 

When you shall be safe and gone. 



FROM "A DRAMA OF EXILE" 

I. Man's Love for Woman 

Adam. What is this. Eve? thou droppest heavily 
In a heap earthward; and thy body heaves 
Under the golden floodings of thine hair ! 

E7'e. O Adam, Adam ! by that name of Eve — 
Thine Eve, thy life — which suits me little now. 
Seeing that I now confess myself thy death 
And thine undoer, as the snake was mine, — 
I do adjure thee, put me straight away. 
Together with my name ! Sweet, punish me! 
O love, be just ! and, ere we pass beyond 



FROM "A DRAMA OF EXILE" 



117 



The light cast outward by the fiery sword, 

Into the dark which earth must be to us, 

Bruise my head with thy foot, — as the curse said 

My seed shall the first tempter's : strike with curse, 

As God struck in the garden ! and as He, 15 

Being satisfied with justice and with wrath, 

Did roll His thunder gentler at the close, — 

Thou, peradventure, may'st at last recoil 

To some soft need of mercy. Strike, my lord ! 

/, also, after tempting, writhe on the ground ; 20 

And I would feed on ashes from thine hand. 

As suits me, O my tempted! 

Adimi. My beloved. 

Mine Eve and life — I have no other name 
For thee or for the sun than what ye are, 
My blessed life and light ! If we have fallen, 25 

It is that we have sinned, — we : God is just; 
And, since His curse doth comprehend us both, 
It must be that His balance holds the weights 
Of first and last sin on a level. What ! 
Shall I who had not virtue to stand straight 30 

Among the hills of Eden, here assume 
To mend the justice of the perfect God, 
By piling up a curse upon His curse, 
Against thee — thee — 

Eve. For so, perchance, thy God 

Might take thee into grace for scorning me ; 35 

Thy wrath against the sinner giving proof 
Of inward abrogation of the sin ! 
And so, the blessed angels might come down 
And walk with thee as erst, — I think they would, — 
Because I was not near to make them sad, 40 

Or soil the rustling of their innocence. 



Il8 SELECTED POEMS 

Adam. They know me. I am deepest in the guilt, 
If last in the transgression. 

Eve. Thou ! 

Ada7n. If God, 

Who gave the right and joyaunce of the world 

45 Both unto thee and me, — gave thee to me, 

The best gift last; the last sin was the worst, 
Which sinned against more complement of gifts 
And grace of giving. God! I render back 
Strong benediction and perpetual praise 

50 From mortal feeble lips (as incense-smoke, 

Out of a little censer, may fill Heaven), 
That Thou, in striking my benumbed hands, 
And forcing them to drop all other boons 
Of beauty and dominion and delight, — 

55 Hast left this well-beloved Eve — this life 

Within life — this best gift between their palms, 
In gracious compensation! 

Eve. Is it thy voice? 

Or some saluting angel's — calling home 
My feet into the garden ? 

Adam. O my God ! 

60 I, standing here between the glory and dark, — 

The glory of Thy wrath projected forth 
From Eden's wall ; the dark of our distress, 
Which settles a step off in that drear world — 
Lift up to Thee the hands from whence hath fallen 

6s Only creation's sceptre, — thanking Thee 

That rather Thou hast cast me out with her 
Than left me lorn of her in Paradise ; — 
With angel looks and angel songs around. 
To show the absence of her eyes and voice, 

70 And make society full desertness 

Without the uses of her comforting. 



FROM "A DRAMA OF EXILE" 119 

Eve. Or is it but a dream of thee, that speaks 
Mine own love's tongue? 

Adam. Because with her., I stand 

Upright, as far as can be in this fall. 

And look away from Heaven, which doth accuse me, 7s 

And look away from earth, which doth convict me. 
Into her face ; and crown my discrowned brow 
Out of her love; and put the thought of her 
Around me, for an Eden full of birds; 

And lift her body up — thus — to my heart ; 80 

And with my lips upon her lips, — thus, thus, — 
Do quicken and sublimate my mortal breath. 
Which cannot climb against the grave's steep sides, 
But overtops this grief! 

Eve. I am renewed : 

My eyes grow with the light which is in thine ; 85 

The silence of my heart is full of sound. 
Hold me up — so ! Because I comprehend 
This human love, I shall not be afraid 
Of any human death ; and yet because 

I know this strength of love, I seem to know go 

Death's strength, by that same sign. Kiss on my lips. 
To shut the door close on my rising soul, — 
Lest it pass outwards in astonishment. 
And leave thee lonely. 

Adai7i. Yet thou liest, Eve, 

Bent heavily on thyself across mine arm, 95 

Thy face flat to the sky. 

Eve. Ay ! and the tears 

Running, as it might seem, my life from me. 
They run so fast and warm. Let me lie so, 
And weep so, — as if in a dream or prayer, — 
Unfastening, clasp by clasp, the hard, tight thought 100 

Which clipped my heart, and showed me evermore 



I20 SELECTED POEMS 

Loathed of thy justice as I loathe the snake, 
And as the pure ones loathe our sin. To-day, 
All day, beloved, as we fled across 

los This desolating radiance, cast by swords 

Not suns, — my lips prayed soundless to myself. 
Striking against each other — " O Lord God ! " 
('T was so I prayed), " I ask Thee by my sin, 
" And by Thy curse, and by Thy blameless heavens, 

no " Make dreadful haste to hide me from Thy face 
" And from the face of my beloved here, 
" For whom I am no helpmeet, quick away 
" Into the new dark mystery of death! 
" I will lie still there; I will make no plaint; 

115 "I will not sigh, nor sob, nor speak a word, — 
"Nor struggle to come back beneath the sun, 
"Where peradventure I might sin anew 
"Against Thy mercy and his pleasure. Death, 
"O death, whate'er it be, is good enough 

120 "For such as L For Adam there's no voice 
"Shall ever say again, in heaven or earth, 
"// is not good for hwi to be a/o?ie.^^ 

Adam. And was it good for such a prayer to pass, 
My unkind Eve, betwixt our mutual lives ? 

125 If I am exiled, must I be bereaved ? 

Eve. 'T was an ill prayer : it shall be prayed no more ; 
And God did use it like a foolishness. 
Giving no answer. Now my heart has grown 
Too high and strong for such a foolish prayer ; 

130 Love makes it strong : and since I was the first 
In the transgression, with a steady foot 
I will be the first to tread from this sword-glare 
Into the outer darkness of the waste, — 
And thus I do it. 



FROM "A DRAMA OF EXILE" 121 

II. The Fate of Woman 

Christ. Speak, Adam. Bless the woman, man — 

It is thine office. 

Adam. Mother of the world, 

Take heart before this Presence. Lo ! my voice. 
Which, naming erst the creatures, did express — 
God breathing through my breath — the attributes s 

And instincts of each creature in its name. 
Floats to the same afflatus, — floats and heaves 
Like a water-weed that opens to a wave, — 
A full-leaved prophecy affecting thee. 

Out fairly and wide. Henceforward, arise, aspire 10 

Unto the calms and magnanimities. 
The lofty uses, and the noble ends. 
The sanctified devotion and full work, 
To which thou art elect for evermore. 
First woman, wife, and mother. 

Eve. And first in sin. is 

Adam. And also the sole bearer of the Seed 
Whereby sin dieth! Raise the majesties 
Of thy disconsolate brows, O well-beloved. 
And front with level eyelids the To come, 

And all the dark o' the world. Rise, woman, rise 20 

To thy peculiar and best altitudes 
Of doing good and of enduring ill, — 
Of comforting for ill, and teaching good. 
And reconciling all that ill and good 

Unto the patience of a constant hope, — 25 

Rise with thy daughters ! If sin came by thee. 
And by sin, death, — the ransom-righteousness, 
The heavenly life and compensative rest 
Shall come by means of thee. If woe by thee 



122 SELECTED POEMS 

30 Had issue to the world, thou shalt go forth 

An angel of the woe thou didst achieve ; 

Found acceptable to the world instead 

Of others of that name, of whose bright steps 

Thy deed stripped bare the hills. Be satisfied ; 
35 Something thou hast to bear through womanhood — 

Peculiar suffering answering to the sin ; 

Some pang paid down for each new human life ; 

Some weariness in guarding such a life — 

Some coldness from the guarded ; some mistrust 
40 From those thou hast too well served ; from those beloved 

Too loyally, some treason : feebleness 

Within thy heart, — and cruelty without ; 

And pressures of an alien tyranny. 

With its dynastic reasons of larger bones 
45 And stronger sinews. But, go to ! thy love 

Shall chant itself its own beatitudes. 

After its own life-working. A child's kiss. 

Set on thy sighing lips, shall make thee glad ; 

A poor man, served by thee, shall make thee rich ; 
50 A sick man, helped by thee, shall make thee strong ; 

Thou shalt be served thyself by every sense 

Of service which thou renderest. Such a crown 

I set upon thy head, — Christ witnessing 

With looks of prompting love — to keep thee clear 
55 Of all reproach against the sin foregone. 

From all the generations which succeed. 

Thy hand which plucked the apple, I clasp close ; 

Thy lips which spake wrong counsel, I kiss close, — 

I bless thee in the name of Paradise, 
60 And by the memory of Edenic joys 

Forfeit and lost ; — by that last cypress tree 

Green at the gate, which thrilled as we came out ; 



FROM "A DRAMA OF EXILE" 123 

And by the blessed nightingale, which threw 

Its melancholy music after us ; — 

And by the flowers, whose spirits full of smells 65 

Did follow softly, plucking us behind 

Back to the gradual banks and vernal bowers 

And fourfold river-courses : — by all these, 

I bless thee to the contraries of these, 

I bless thee to the desert and the thorns, 70 

To the elemental change and turbulence. 

And to the roar of the estranged beasts. 

And to the solemn dignities of grief, — 

To each one of these ends, — and to this end 

Of Death and the hereafter ! 

Eve. I accept 75 

For me and for my daughters this high part. 
Which lowly shall be counted. Noble work 
Shall hold me in the place of garden-rest ; 
And in the place of Eden's lost delight. 
Worthy endurance of permitted pain ; 80 

While on my longest patience there shall wait 
Death's speechless angel, smiling in the east 
Whence cometh the cold wind. I bow myself 
Humbly henceforward on the ill I did. 
That humbleness may keep it in the shade. 55 



124 SELECTED POEMS 

A VISION OF POETS 

The poet rose up on his feet : 
He stood before an altar set 
For sacrament, with vessels meet, 

And mystic altar-lights which shine 
5 As if their flames were crystalline 

Carved flames that would not shrink or pine. 

The altar filled the central place 

Of a great church, and toward its face 

Long aisles did shoot and interlace. 

lo And from it a continuous mist 

Of incense (round the edges kissed 
By a yellow light of amethyst) 

Wound upward slowly and throbbingly, 
Cloud within cloud, right silverly, 
IS Cloud above cloud, victoriously. 

Broke full against the arched roof. 
And, thence refracting, eddied off, 
And floated through the marble woof 

Of many a fine-wrought architrave, — 

20 Then, poising its white masses brave, 

Swept solemnly down aisle and nave. 

And now in dark, and now in light, 

The countless columns, glimmering white, 

Seemed leading out to Infinite. 



A VISION OF POETS 125 

Plunged half-way up the shaft they showed, 25 

In that pale shifting incense-cloud 
Which flowed them by, and overflowed, 

Till mist and marble seemed to blend, 

And the whole temple, at the end, 

With its own incense to distend ; 30 

The arches, like a giant's bow. 

To bend and slacken, — and below. 

The niched saints to come and go. 

Alone, amid the shifting scene, 
That central altar stood serene 
In its clear steadfast taper-sheen. 



35 



40 



Then first, the poet was aware 
Of a chief angel standing there 
Before that altar, in the glare. 

His eyes were dreadful, for you saw 
That they saw God — his lips and jaw. 
Grand-made and strong, as Sinai's Law 

They could enunciate, and refrain 

From vibratory after-pain ; 

And his brow's height was sovereign — 45 

On the vast background of his wings 

Rises his image ! and he flings. 

From each plumed arc, pale glitterings 

And fiery flakes (as beateth more 

Or less, the angel-heart) before, so 

And round him, upon roof and floor, 



126 SELECTED POEMS 

Edging with fire the shifting fumes : 
While at his side, 'twixt lights and glooms, 
The phantasm of an organ booms. 

55 Extending from which instrument 

And angel, right and left-way bent, 
The poet's sight grew sentient 

Of a strange company around 
And toward the altar, — pale and crowned, 
60 With sovran eyes of depth profound. 

Deathful their faces were ; and yet 
The power of life was in them set — 
Never forgot nor to forget. 

Sublime significance of mouth, 
65 Dilated nostril full of youth, 

And forehead royal with the truth. 

These faces were not multiplied 
Beyond your count, but side by side 
Did front the altar, glorified ; 

70 Still as a vision, yet exprest 

Full as an action — look and geste 
Of buried saint, in risen rest ! 

The poet knew them. Faint and dim 
His spirit seemed to sink in him, 
75 Then, like a dolphin, change and swim 

The current — These were poets true. 

Who died for Beauty, as martyrs do 

For Truth — the ends being scarcely two. 



A VISION OF POETS 12/ 

God's prophets of the Beautiful 

These poets were — of iron rule, 80 

The rugged cilix, serge of wool. 

Here, Homer, with the broad suspense 
Of thunderous brows, and lips intense 
Of garrulous god-innocence. 

There, Shakespeare ! on whose forehead climb 85 

The crowns o' the world ! Oh, eyes subHme — 
With tears and laughters for all time ! 

Here ^schylus, the women swooned 

To see so awful when he frowned 

As the gods did, — he standeth crowned. 90 

Euripides, with close and mild 
Scholastic lips, — that could be wild. 
And laugh or sob out like a child 

Right in the classes. Sophocles, 

With that king's look which down the trees 95 

Followed the dark efligies 

Of the lost Theban ! Hesiod old, 
Who, somewhat blind and deaf and cold. 
Cared most for gods and bulls. And bold 

Electric Pindar, quick as fear, 1°° 

With race-dust on his cheeks, and clear. 
Slant startled eyes that seem to hear 

The chariot rounding the last goal, 

To hurtle past it in his soul. 

And Sappho crowned with aureole 105 



128 SELECTED POEMS 

Of ebon curls on calmed brows — 
O poet-woman ! none forgoes 
The leap, attaining the repose ! 

Theocritus, with glittering locks, 
no Dropt sideway, as betwixt the rocks 

He watched the visionary flocks. 

And Aristophanes, who took 

The world with mirth, and laughter-struck 

The hollow caves of Thought and woke 

115 The infinite echoes hid in each. 

And Virgil : shade of Mantuan beech 
Did help the shade of bay to reach 

And knit around his forehead high ! — 
For his gods wore less majesty 
120 Than his brown bees hummed deathlessly. 

Lucretius — nobler than his mood : 

Who dropped his plummet down the broad 

Deep universe, and said " No God," 

Finding no bottom : he denied 
125 Divinely the divine, and died 

Chief poet on the Tiber-side, 

By grace of God ! his face is stern 
As one compelled, in spite of scorn. 
To teach a truth he could not learn. 

130 And Ossian, dimly seen or guessed : 

Once counted greater than the rest. 
When mountain winds blew out his vest. 



A VISION OF POETS 129 

And Spenser drooped his dreaming head 

(With languid sleep-smile you had said 

From his own verse engendered) 13s 

On Ariosto's, till they ran 

Their curls in one. — The Italian 

Shot nimbler heat of bolder man 

From his fine lids. And Dante stern 

And sweet, whose spirit was an urn 140 

For wine and milk poured out in turn. 

Hard-souled Alfieri ; and fancy-willed 
Boiardo — who with laughter filled 
The pauses of the jostled shield. 

And Berni, with a hand stretched out 145 

To sleek that storm. And not without 
The wreath he died in, and the doubt 

He died by, Tasso ; bard and lover, 

Whose visions were too thin to cover 

The face of a false woman over. 150 

And soft Racine, — and grave Corneille — 

The orator of rhymes, whose wail 

Scarce shook his purple. And Petrarch pale. 

Who from his brain-lighted heart hath thrown 

A thousand thoughts beneath the sun, 155 

Each perfumed with the name of One. 

And Camoens, with that look he had. 
Compelling India's Genius sad 
From the wave through the Lusiad, 



I30 SELECTED POEMS 

i6o The murmurs of a purple ocean 

Indrawn in vibrative emotion 
Along the verse. And while devotion 

In his wild eyes fantastic shone 
Between the bright curls blown upon 
i6s By airs celestial, — Calderon. 

And bold De Vega, — who breathed quick 
Song after song, till death's old trick 
Put pause to life and rhetoric. 

And Goethe, — with that reaching eye 
170 His soul reached out from, far and high, 

And fell from inner entity. 

And Schiller, with heroic front 
Worthy of Plutarch's kiss upon 't, — 
Too large for wreath of modern wont. 

17s And Chaucer, with his infantine 

Familiar clasp of things divine — 
That mark upon his lip is wine. 

Here, Milton's eyes strike piercing-dim ! 
The shapes of suns and stars did swim 
180 Like clouds from them, and granted him 

God for sole vision. Cowley, there. 

Whose active fancy debonaire 

Drew straws like amber — foul to fair. 

Drayton and Browne, — with smiles they drew 
185 From outward nature, to renew 

From their own inward nature true. 



A VISION OF POETS 131 

And Marlowe, Webster, Fletcher, Ben — 
Whose fire-hearts sowed our furrows, when 
The world was worthy of such men. 

And Burns, with pungent passionings 19° 

Set in his eyes. Deep lyric springs 
Are of the fire-mount's issuings. 

And Shelley, in his white ideal, 

All statue-blind ; and Keats the real 

Adonis, with the hymeneal 195 

Fresh vernal buds half sunk between 

His youthful curls, kissed straight and sheen 

In his Rome-grave, by Venus queen. 

And poor, proud Byron, — sad as grave 

And salt as life ; forlornly brave, 2°° 

And quivering with the dart he drave. 

And visionary Coleridge, who 

Did sweep his thoughts as angels do 

Their wings, with cadence up the Blue. 

These poets faced (and other more) 203 

The lighted altar looming o'er 

The clouds of incense dim and hoar : 

And all their faces, in the lull 

Of natural things, looked wonderful 

With life and death and deathless rule. 210 



132 SELECTED POEMS 

AURORA LEIGH 

A GIRL'S EDUCATION IN THE EARLY NINETEENTH 

CENTURY 

I learnt the collects and the catechism, 
The creeds, from Athanasius back to Nice, 
The Articles . . . the Tracts agai?ist the times, 
(By no means Buonaventure's "Prick of Love,") 
5 And various popular synopses of 

Inhuman doctrines never taught by John, 
Because she liked instructed piety. 
I learnt my complement of classic French 
(Kept pure of Balzac and neologism,) 

lo And German also, since she liked a range 

Of liberal education, — tongues, not books. 
I learnt a little algebra, a little 

Of the mathematics, — brushed with extreme flounce 
The circle of the sciences, because 

15 She misliked women who are frivolous. 

I learnt the royal genealogies 
Of Oviedo, the internal laws 
Of the Burmese empire, ... by how many feet 
Mount Chimborazo outsoars Himmelah, 

20 What navigable river joins itself 

To Lara, and what census of the year five 
Was taken at Klagenfurt, — because she liked 
A general insight into useful facts, 
I learnt much music — such as would have been 

2s As quite impossible in Johnson's day 

As still it might be wished — fine sleights of hand 
And unimagined fingering, shuffling off 
The hearer's soul through hurricanes of notes 
To a noisy Tophet ; and I drew . . . costumes 

30 From French engravings, nereids neatly draped, 



AURORA LEIGH 133 

With smirks of simmering godship, — I washed in 

From nature landscapes, (rather say, washed out). 

I danced the polka and Cellarius, 

Spun glass, stuffed birds, and modelled flowers in wax. 

Because she liked accomplishments in girls. 35 

I read a score of books on womanhood 

To prove, if women do not think at all. 

They may teach thinking, (to a maiden-aunt 

Or else the author) — books demonstrating 

Their right of comprehending husband's talk • 40 

When not too deep, and even of answering 

With pretty " may it please you," or " so it is," — 

Their rapid insight and fine aptitude, 

Particular worth and general missionariness, 

As long as they keep quiet by the fire 45 

And never say " no " when the world says " ay," 

For that is fatal, — their angelic reach 

Of virtue, chiefly used to sit and darn. 

And fatten household sinners, — their, in brief. 

Potential faculty in everything 50 

Of abdicating power in it : she owned 

She liked a woman to be womanly. 

And English women, she thanked God and sighed, 

(Some people always sigh in thanking God) 

Were models to the universe. And last 55 

1 learnt cross-stitch, because she did not like 

To see me wear the night with empty hands 

A-doing nothing. So, my shepherdess 

Was something after all, (the pastoral saints 

Be praised for 't) leaning lovelorn with pink eyes 60 

To match her shoes, when I mistook the silks ; 

Her head uncrushed by that round weight of hat 

So strangely similar to the tortoise-shell 

Which slew the tragic poet. 



134 SELECTED POEMS 



ENGLAND 

First, the lime, 
(I had enough, there, of the lime, be sure, — 
My morning-dream was often hummed away 
By the bees in it ;) past the lime, the lawn, 

5 Which, after sweeping broadly around the house, 
Went trickling through the shrubberies in a stream 
Of tender turf, and wore and lost itself 
Among the acacias, over which you saw 
The irregular line of elms by the deep lane 

lo Which stopped the grounds and dammed the overflow 
Of arbutus and laurel. Out of sight 
The lane was ; sunk so deep, no foreign tramp 
Nor drover of wild ponies out of Wales 
Could guess if lady's hall or tenant's lodge 

15 Dispensed such odours — though his stick well-crooked 
Might reach the lowest trail of blossoming briar 
Which dipped upon the wall. Behind the elms, 
And through their tops, you saw the folded hills 
Striped up and down with hedges, (burly oaks 

20 Projecting from the lines to show themselves) 

Through which my cousin Romney's chimneys smoked 
As still as when a silent mouth in frost 
Breathes — showing where the woodlands hid Leigh Hall ; 
While, far above, a jut of table-land, 

25 A promontory without water, stretched, — 
You could not catch it if the days were thick. 
Or took it for a cloud ; but, otherwise 
The vigorous sun would catch it up at eve 
And use it for an anvil till he had filled 

30 The shelves of heaven with burning thunderbolts, 



35 



AURORA LEIGH 135 

And proved he need not rest so early : — then, 
When all his setting trouble was resolved 
To a trance of passive glory, you might see 
In apparition on the golden sky 
(Alas, my Giotto's background !) the sheep run 
Along the fine clear outline, small as mice 
That run along a witch's scarlet thread. 

Not a grand nature. Not my chestnut-woods 

Of Vallombrosa, cleaving by the spurs 

To the precipices. Not my headlong leaps 4° 

Of waters, that cry out for joy or fear 

In leaping through the palpitating pines, 

Like a white soul tossed out to eternity 

With thrills of time upon it. Not indeed 

My multitudinous mountains, sitting in « 

The magic circle, with the mutual touch 

Electric, panting from their full deep hearts 

Beneath the influent heavens, and waiting for 

Communion and commission. Italy 

Is one thing, England one. 

On English ground 5° 

You understand the letter, — ere the fall 

How Adam lived in a garden. All the fields 

Are tied up fast with hedges, nosegay-like ; 

The hills are crumpled plains, the plains, parterres, — 

The trees, round, woolly ready to be clipped ; 

And if you seek any wilderness 

You find, at best, a park. A nature tamed 

And grown domestic like a barn-door fowl. 

Which does not awe you with its claws and beak, 

Nor tempt you to an eyrie too high up. 

But which, in cackling, sets you thinking of 



55 



136 SELECTED POEMS 

Your eggs to-morrow at breakfast, in the pause 
Of finer meditation. 

Rather say, 
A sweet familiar nature, stealing in 

65 As a dog might, or child, to touch your hand 

Or pluck your gown, and humbly mind you so 
Of presence and affection, excellent 
For inner uses, from the things without. 
I learnt to love that England. Very oft, 

70 Before the day was born, or otherwise 

Through secret windings of the afternoons, 
I threw my hunters off and plunged myself 
Among the deep hills, as a hunted stag 
Will take the waters, shivering with the fear 

75 And passion of the course. And when, at last 

Escaped, — so many a green slope built on slope 

Betwixt me and the enemy's house behind, 

I dared to rest, or wander, like a rest 

Made sweeter for the step upon the grass, — 

80 And view the ground's most gentle dimplement, 

(As if God's finger touched but did not press 
In making England !) such an up and down 
Of verdure, — nothing too much up or down, 
A ripple of land ; such little hills, the sky 

8s Can stoop to tenderly and the wheatfields climb ; 

Such nooks of valleys lined with orchises. 
Fed full of noises by invisible streams ; 
And open pastures, where you scarcely tell 
White daisies from white dew, — at intervals 

90 The mythic oaks and elm-trees standing out 

Self-poised upon their prodigy of shade, — 
I thought my father's land was worthy too 
Of being my Shakespeare's. 



AURORA LEIGH I 37 

ITALY 

Journeying to Italy through France 

The next day, we took train to Italy 

And fled on southward in the roar of steam. 

The marriage-bells of Romney must be loud, 

To sound so clear through all ! I was not well ; 

And truly, though the truth is like a jest, 5 

I could not choose but fancy, half the way, 

I stood alone i' the belfry, fifty bells 

Of naked iron, mad with merriment, 

(As one who laughs and cannot stop himself) 

All clanking at me, in me, over me, 10 

Until I shrieked a shriek I could not hear. 

And swooned with noise, — but still, along my swoon. 

Was 'ware the baffled changes backward rang. 

Prepared, at each emerging sense, to beat 

And crash it out with clangour, I was weak ; 15 

I struggled for the posture of my soul 

In upright consciousness of place and time, 

But evermore, 'twixt waking and asleep. 

Slipped somehow, staggered, caught at Marian's eyes 

A moment, (it is very good for strength 20 

To know that some one needs you to be strong) 

And so recovered what I called myself, 

For that time. 

I just knew it when we swept 
Above the old roofs of Dijon. Lyons dropped 
A spark into the night, half trodden out 25 

Unseen. But presently the winding Rhone 
Washed out the moonlight large along his banks, 



138 SELECTED POEMS 



^ 



Which strained their yielding curves out clear and clean 
To hold it, — shadow of town and castle blurred 

30 Upon the hurrying river. Such an air 

Blew thence upon the forehead, — half an air 
And half a water, — that I leaned and looked; 
Then, turning back on Marian, smiled to mark 
That she looked only on her child, who slept. 
His face towards the moon too. 

35 So we passed 

The liberal open country and the close. 
And shot through tunnels, like a lightning wedge 
By great Thor-hammers driven through the rock. 
Which, quivering through the intestine blackness, splits, 

40 And lets it in at once : the train swept in 
Athrob with effort, trembling with resolve. 
The fierce denouncing whistle wailing on 
And dying off smothered in the shuddering dark. 
While we, self-awed, drew troubled breath, oppressed 

45 As other Titans, underneath the pile 

And nightmare of the mountains. Out, at last. 
To catch the dawn afloat upon the land ! 
— Hills, slung forth broadly and gauntly everywhere. 
Not cramped in their foundations, pushing wide 

so Rich outspreads of the vineyard and the corn, 
(As if they entertained i' the name of France) 
While, down their straining sides, streamed manifest 
A soil as red as Charlemagne's knightly blood. 
To consecrate the verdure. Some one said, 

55 " Marseilles ! " And lo, the city of Marseilles 
With all her ships behind her, and beyond. 
The scimitar of ever-shining sea. 
For right-hand use, bared blue against the sky! 



AURORA LEIGH 139 

That night we spent between the purple heaven 

And purple water : I think Marian slept ; 60 

But I, as a dog awatch for his master's foot, 

Who cannot sleep or eat before he hears, 

I sate upon the deck and watched the night 

And listened through the stars for Italy. 

Those marriage-bells I spoke of sounded far, 65 

As some child's go-cart in the street beneath 

To a dying man who will not pass the day, 

And knows it, holding by a hand he loves. 

I, too, sate quiet, satisfied with death. 

Sate silent : I could hear my own soul speak ; 70 

And had my friend, — for Nature comes sometimes 

And says, " I am ambassador for God." 

I felt the wind soft from the land of souls ; 

The old miraculous mountains heaved in sijrht. 

One straining past another along the shore, 75 

The way of grand dull Odyssean ghosts, 

Athirst to drink the cool blue wine of seas 

And stare on voyagers. Peak pushing peak 

They stood : I watched beyond that Tyrian belt 

Of intense sea betwixt them and the ship, 80 

Down all their sides the misty olive-woods 

Dissolving in the weak congenial moon. 

And still disclosing some brown convent-tower 

That seems as if it grew from some brown rock„ — 

Or many a little lighted village, dropped 85 

Like a fallen star upon so high a point, 

You wonder what can keep it in its place 

From sliding headlong with the waterfalls 

Which drop and powder all the myrtle groves 

With spray of silver. Thus my Italy 9° 

Was stealing on us. Genoa broke with day ; 



I40 SELECTED POEMS 

The Doria's long pale palace striking out, 
From green hills in advance of the white town, 
A marble finger dominant to ships, 
9.S Seen glimmering through the uncertain grey of dawn. 



FLORENCE 

I found a house at Florence on the hill 
Of Bellosguardo. ' Tis a tower that keeps 
A post of double observation o'er 
The valley of Arno (holding as a hand 

5 The outspread city) straight toward Fiesole 

And Mount Morello and the setting sun, — 
The Vallombrosan mountains to the right, 
Which sunrise fills as full as crystal cups 
Wine-filled, and red to the brim because it's red. 

lo No sun could die, nor yet be born, unseen 

By dwellers at my villa : morn and eve 
Were magnified before us in the pure 
Illimitable space and pause of sky. 
Intense as angels' garments blanched with God, 

IS Less blue than radiant. From the outer wall 

Of the garden, dropped the mystic floating grey 
Of olive-trees, (with interruptions green 
From maize and vine) until 'twas caught and torn 
On that abrupt black line of cypresses 

20 Which signed the way to Florence. Beautiful 

The city lay along the ample vale. 
Cathedral, tower and palace, piazza and street ; 
The river trailing like a silver cord 
Through all, and curling loosely, both before 

25 And after, over the whole stretch of land 

Sown whitely up and down its opposite slopes, 
With farms and villa*; 



CASA GUIDI WINDOWS 141 

CASA GUIDI WINDOWS 
FLORENCE AND MICHEL ANGELO 

For me who stand in Italy to-day, 
Where worthier poets stood and sang before, 

I kiss their footsteps, yet their words gainsay : 
I can but muse in hope upon this shore 

Of golden Arno, as it shoots away s 

Straight through the heart of Florence, 'neath the four 

Bent bridges, seeming to strain off like bows, 
And tremble, while the arrowy undertide 

Shoots on and cleaves the marble as it goes. 
And strikes up palace-walls on either side, 10 

And froths the cornice out in glittering rows, 
With doors and windov/s quaintly multiplied, 

And terrace-sweeps, and gazers upon all. 
By whom if flower or kerchief were thrown out, 

From any lattice there, the same would fall 15 

Into the river underneath, no doubt, — 

It runs so close and fast 'twixt wall and wall. 
How beautiful ! the mountains from without 

Listen in silence for the word said next, 
(What word will men say?) here where Giotto planted 20 

His campanile, like an unperplexed 
Question to Heaven, concerning the things granted 

To a great people, who, being greatly vexed 
In act, in aspiration keep undaunted ! 

(What word says God ?) the sculptor's Night and Day, 25 
And Dawn and Twilight, wait in marble scorn, 

Like dogs upon a dunghill, on the clay 
From whence the Medicean stamp 's outworn, — 

The final putting off of all such sway 



142 SELECTED POEMS 

30 By all such hands, and freeing of the unborn 

In Florence, and the world outside his Florence. 
That 's Michel Angelo ! his statues wait 

In the small chapel of the dim St. Lawrence ! 
Day's eyes are breaking bold and passionate 
35 Over his shoulder, and will flash abhorrence 

On darkness, and with level looks meet fate, 

When once loose from that marble film of theirs : 
The Night has wild dreams in her sleep ; the Dawn 
Is haggard as the sleepless : Twilight wears 
40 A sort of horror : as the veil withdrawn 

'Twixt the artist's soul and works had left them heirs 
Of the deep thoughts which would not quail nor fawn. 

Of angers and contempts, his hope and love ; 
For not without a meaning did he place 
45 Princely Urbino on the seat above 

With everlasting shadow on his face; 

While the slow dawns and twilights disapprove 
The ashes of his long-extinguished race. 

Which never shall clog more the feet of men. 

SAVONAROLA 

'Tis true that when the dust of death has choked 

A great man's voice, the common words he said 
Turn oracles, — the meanings which he yoked 

Like horses, draw like griffins ! — this is true 
5 And acceptable. Also I desire, 

When men make record, with the flowers they strew, 
" Savonarola's soul went out in fire 

Upon our Grand-duke's piazza, and burned through 
A moment first, or ere he did expire, 
10 The veil betwixt the right and wrong, and showed 



CASA GUIDI WINDOWS 143 

How near God sate and judged the judges there," — 

Desire upon the pavement overstrewed 
To cast my violets with as reverent care, 

And prove that all the winters which have snowed 
Cannot snow out the scent, from stones and air, 15 

Of a sincere man's virtues. This was he, 
Savonarola, who, while Peter sank 

With his whole boat-load, called courageously 
" Wake Christ, wake Christ ! " — who, having tried the tank 

Of old church-waters used for baptistry 20 

Ere Luther lived to spill them, said they stank ! 

Who also, by a princely deathbed, cried 
" Loose Florence, or God will not loose thy soul," 

While the Magnificent fell back and died 
Beneath the star-looks, shooting from the cowl, 25 

Which turned to wormwood-bitterness the wide 
Deep sea of his ambitions. It were foul 

To grudge Savonarola and the rest 
Their violets ! rather pay them quick and fresh ! 

The emphasis of death makes manifest 30 

The eloquence of action in our flesh ; 

And men who, living, were but dimly guessed. 
When once free from their life's entangled mesh. 

Show their full length in graves, or even indeed 
Exaggerate their stature, in the flat, 35 

To noble admirations which exceed 
Nobly, nor sin in such excess. For that 

Is wise and righteous. 



144 SELECTED POEMS 

THE CHURCH OF SANTA MARIA NOVELLA: CIMABUE 

Or enler, in your Elorence wanderings, 

Santa Maria Novella church. You pass 
The left stair, where, at plague-time, Macchiavel 

Saw one with set fair face as in a glass, 
5 Dressed out against the fear of death and hell. 

Rustling her silks in pauses of the mass. 
To keep the thought off how her husband fell, 

When she left home, stark dead across her feet — 
The stair leads up to what Orgagna gave 
lo Of Dante's da;mons ; but you, passing it. 

Ascend the right stair of the farther nave. 

To muse in a small chapel scarcely lit 
By Cimabue's Virgin. Bright and brave. 

That picture was accounted, mark, of old ! 
15 A king stood bare before its sovran grace ; 

A reverent people shouted to behold 
The picture, not the king ; and even the place 

Containing such a miracle grew bold. 
Named the Glad Borgo from that beauteous face, 
20 Which thrilled the artist, after work, to think 

That his ideal Mary-smile should stand 

So very near him ! — he, within the brink 
Of all that glory, let in by his hand 

With too divine a rashness ! Yet none shrink 
25 Who gaze here now — albeit the thing is planned 

Sublimely in the thought's simplicity. 
The Virgin, throned in empyreal state. 

Minds only the young babe upon her knee ; 
While, each side, angels bear the royal weight, 
3<. Prostrated meekly, smiling tenderly 



CASA GUIDI WINDOWS 145 

Oblivion of their wings ! the Child thereat 

Stretches its hand like God. If any should, 
Because of some stiff draperies and loose joints, 

Gaze scorn down from the heights of Raffaelhood, 
On Cimabue's picture, — Heaven anoints 35 

The head of no such critic, and his blood 
The poet's curse strikes full on, and appoints 

To ague and cold spasms for evermore. 
A noble picture ! worthy of the shout 

Wherewith along the streets the people bore 40 

Its cherub-faces, which the sun threw out 

Until they stooped and entered the church door ! — 
Yet rightly was young Giotto talked about, 

Whom Cimabue found among the sheep. 
And knew, as gods know gods, and carried home 45 

To paint the things he painted, with a deep 
And fuller insight, and so overcome 

His chapel-Virgin with a heavenlier sweep 
Of light ? For thus we mount into the sum 

Of great things known or acted. I hold, too, 5° 

That Cimabue smiled upon the lad. 

At the first stroke which passed what he could do, — 
Or else his Virgin's smile had never had 

Such sweetness in 't. All great men who foreknew 
Their heirs in art, for art's sake have been glad, 55 

And bent their old white heads as if uncrowned. 
Fanatics of their pure ideals still. 

Far more than of their laurels which were found 
With some less stalwart struggle of the will. 

If old IMargheritone trembled, swooned, 60 

And died despairing at the open sill 

Of other men's achievements, (who achieved, 



146 SELECTED POEMS 

By loving art beyond the master !) he 

Was old Margheritone and conceived 
6s Never, at youngest and most ecstasy, 

A Virgin like that dream of one, which heaved 
The death-sigh from his heart. If wistfully 

Margheritone sickened at the smell 
Of Cimabue's laurel, let him go ! — 
70 Strong Cimabue stood up very well 

In spite of Giotto's, — and Angelico, 

The artist-saint, kept smiling in his cell 
The smile with which he welcomed the sweet slow 

Inbreak of angels, (whitening through the dim 
75 That he might paint them!) while the sudden sense 

Of Raffael's future was revealed to him 
By force of his own fair works' competence. 

The same blue waters where the dolphins swim 
Suggest the tritons. Through the blue Immense, 
80 Strike out, all swimmers ! cling not in the way 

Of one another, so to sink ; but leave 

The strong man's impulse, catch the fresh'ning spray 
He throws up in his motions, and discern 

By his clear, westering eye, the time of day. 

VALLOMBROSA 

And Vallombrosa, we two went to see 

Last June, beloved companion, — where sublime 
The mountains live in holy families. 

And the slow pinewoods ever climb and climb 
5 Half up their breasts ; just stagger as they seize 

Some grey crag — drop back with it many a time, 
And straggle blindly down the precipice ! 

The Vallombrosan brooks were strewn as thick 



CASA GUIDI WINDOWS I47 

That June-day, knee-deep, with dead beechen leaves. 

As Milton saw them ere his heart grew sick, 10 

And his eyes blind. I think the monks and beeves 

Are all the same too : scarce they have changed the wick 
On good Saint Gualbert's altar, which receives 

The convent's pilgrims ; and the pool in front 
Where in the hill-stream trout are cast, to wait is 

The beatific vision and the grunt 
Used at refectory, keeps its weedy state. 

To baffle saintly abbots, who would count 
The fish across their breviary, nor 'bate 

The measure of their steps. O waterfalls ao 

And forests ! sound and silence ! mountains bare, 

That leap up peak by peak and catch the palls 
Of purple and silver mist, to rend and share 

With one another, at electric calls 
Of life in the sunbeams, — till we cannot dare 25 

Fix your shapes, learn your number ! we must think 
Your beauty and your glory helped to fill 

The cup of Milton's soul so to the brink. 
That he no more was thirsty when God's will 

Had shattered to his sense the last chain-link 30 

By which he drew from Nature's visible 

The fresh well-water. Satisfied by this. 
He sang of Adam's paradise and smiled. 

Remembering Vallombrosa. Therefore is 
The place divine to English man and child — ' 35 

We all love Italy. 



148 SELECTED POEMS 



LOVE FOR ITALY 



1 



How oft, indeed, 
We all have sent our souls out from the north. 

On bare white feet which would not print nor bleed. 
To climb the Alpine passes and look forth, 

Where the low fnurmuring Lombard rivers lead 
Their bee-like way to gardens almost worth. 

The sight which thou and I see afterward 
From Tuscan Bellosguardo, wide awake. 

When standing on the actual, blessed sward 
Where Galileo stood at nights to take 

The visions of the stars, we find it hard. 
Gazing upon the earth and heaven, to make 

A choice of beauty. 



NOTES 



THE SLEEP 

First published in The Seraphim and Other Poems, 1838. The poem was 
set to music by Sir Frederick Bridge, so that it might be sung at Robert 
Browning's funeral in Westminster Abbey, December 31, 1889. 

1 6 "He giveth His beloved, sleep" ? Cf. Psalm cxxvii, 2 : " It is vain 
for you that ye rise up early, and so late take rest, and eat the bread of 
toil : for so he giveth unto his beloved sleep." The psalmist is probably 
one of the Hebrew prophets. 



COWPER'S GRAVE 

First published in The Seraphim and Other Poems, 1838. 

3 1 William Cowper (i 731-1800) is buried in what is now called 
the Cowper Chapel of Dereham Church, Norfolk. 

3 5a maniac's tongue. Cowper, unhappily, suffered throughout his 
life from fits of depression that at times culminated in madness and 
made his confinement necessary ; his morbid condition of mind led him 
to see in himself one who was forsaken by his God. 

3 .5-6 deathless singing : one of Mrs. Browning's most haunting 
phrases. Cf. Introd., p. xxvii. 

4 21-24 Cow'per was a close observer and a faithful painter of nature. 

5 25 Wild timid hares. 1\\ order to distract his mind Cowper tamed 
hares, and found relief from his melancholy in tending them. Cf. his 
poem. Epitaph on a Hare. 

5 33-38 Cf. Cowper's poem. On the Receipt of my Mother''s PictJire 
out of iVorfolk. 

6 51 Immanuel : a symbolic name, meaning " With us (is) God." 
Cf. Isaiah vii. 14: "Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign; 
behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name 
Immanuel." 

149 



150 SELECTED POEMS 



A SEA-SIDE WALK 

First published in The Scrapliim and Other Poems, 1838. The poem plainly 
sliows the influence of Wordsworth. 

7 3-7 A reference to a well-known tale in The Arabian A^ii^^his. 
7 13-14 the water grey . . . moon-taught way: an allusion to the 
cause of the tides. 

THE SEA-MEW 

First published in The Scrafhiui and Otha- Poems, 1838. This poem was a 
special favorite with Miss Mitford and 11. S. Boyd. Writing to the former in 
1850, Mrs. Browning says: '■'■None of these siinple poems of mine have bceti 
favorites with general readers. The unintelligible ones are always preferred, I 
observe, by extractors, compilers, and ladies and gentlemen who write to tell me 
I 'm a muse." 

MY DOVES 

First published in The Seraphim and Other Poetns, 1838. The motto mean' . 
" O wisdom, you speak like a dove ! " 

11 22-24 Cf. Wordsworth, Three years she grew in sun and shower : 

And hers the silence and the calm 
Of mute insensate things. 

12 67 Cf. Psalm cxxxvii. 1-4: 

By the rivers of Babylon, 

There we sat down, yea, we wept, 

When we remembered Zion. 

Upon the willows in the midst thereof 

We hanged up our harps. 

For there they that led us captive required of us songs. 

And they that wasted us required of us mirth, saying, 

Sing us one of the songs of Zion. 

How shall we sing the Lord's song 

In a strange land ? 

12 68 Rabel here means London, which is sometimes called "the 
modern Babylon " on account of its luxury and wealth. 



NOTES 151 



LESSONS FROM THE GORSE 

First printed in The Athenctum, October, 1841, and afterwards in Vol. II of 
Poems ^ 1844. 

13 4 holden : archaic form of held. 

14 22 Linnaeus (1707-1778). The founder of the science of modern 
botany was a native of Sweden. He was for many years professor of 
botany at the University of Upsala in Sweden. 



THE POET AND THE BIRD 

First published in Poems, 1844. Cf. Tennyson's poem, The Pocfs Song, the 
leading thought of which is similar. 



LADY GERALDINE'S COURTSHIP 

First published in Poems, 1844. It appears at the end of Vol. I. It was 
written, or at least finished, to make enough material for the 1844 volumes. 
Mrs. Browning says of it in a letter: " In that poem I endeavored to throw con- 
ventionalities into the fire of poetry, to make them glow and glitter as if they 
were not dull things." It was admired by Carlyle and Miss Harriet Martineau, 
and was moreover the germ of Aurora Leigh. Writing to John Kenyon in 1844, 
Miss Barrett says : " I have a great fancy for writing some day a longer poem of 
a like class, — a poem comprehending the aspect and manners of modern life, 
and flinching at nothing of the conventional. I think it might be done with 
good effect." Writing to Robert Browning in 1845, ^^e says: "But my chief 
intention just now is the writing of a sort of novel-poem — a poem as completely 
modern as Gcraldine^ s Courtship, running into the midst of our conventions, 
and rushing into drawing-rooms and the like, ' where angels fear to tread ' ; and 
so, meeting face to face and without mask the Humanity of the age, and speaking 
the truth as I conceive of it out plainly. That is my intention. It is not mature 
enough yet to be called a plan. I am waiting for a story, and I won't take one, 
because I want to make one, and I like to make my own stories, because then I 
can take liberties with them in the treatment." 

The poem shows the influence of Tennyson, and is of the same class as his 
Locksley Hall, and written in a similar meter, — the trochaic eight-accent trun- 
cated verse. 

17 36 Still suggested . . . salt. In olden days the inferior members 
of a great household, though dining at the same time and at the same 



152 SELECTED POEMS 

table as the superior members, always sat below the massive silver salt 
cellar which was placed in the middle of the table. 

19 71-72 Cf. Tennyson, Locksley Hall : 

O my cousin, shallow-hearted ! O my Amy, mine no more ! 
O the dreary, dreary moorland ! O the barren, barren shore ! 

20 86 commix : a strong form of mix. 

20 92 abeles : white or silver poplars, so called from the white 
color of the twigs and leaves. 

21 97-98 Cf. Tennyson, The Gardener's Datighter : 

For up the porch there grew an Eastern rose, 
That, flowering high, the last night's gale had caught, 
And blown across the walk. One arm aloft — 
Gown'd in pure white, that fitted to the shape — 
Holding the bush, to fix it back, she stood. 

21 108 lindens : lime trees. 

22 115 Lough the sculptor (1806-1876). John Graham Lough first 
exhibited at the Royal Academy in London in 1826. He executed some 
important works such as the statue of Queen Victoria in the London 
Royal Exchange, and the monument to the poet Southey in Keswick 
Church. His works have not sustained their original reputation. 

24 ]53 gowans : the Gaelic word for daisies. 

24 155 rowans : mountain-ash trees. 

25 159 the pastoral parts of Spenser. Spenser's Shepheard''s Calendar 
( 1 579-1 580) was the first poem he published. It appeared anonymously 
under the editorship of one who had been a fellow-student at Cam- 
bridge, E. K. (Edward Kirke). Edmund Spenser was born in 1552 and 
died in 1 599. His fame rests on his great allegorical poem, The Faerie 
Queene, published 1590- 1596. 

25 160 Petrarch's sonnets. Francesco Petrarca (i 304-1 374) was one 
of the greatest Italian lyric poets. He perfected the form of the sonnet. 
The earliest English sonnets follow closely the structure used by him. 
Cf. Byron, Childe HarohPs Pilgrimas^e, canto iv. 30-31. 

25 161 Wordsworth's solemn-thoughted idyl. Good examples of 
Wordsworth's idyls are Michael (1800), Resohition and Independence 
(published 1807), The Solitary Reaper (published 1807). Wordsworth 
(1770-1850) is the great poet of nature; as Ruskin says, "the keenest- 
eyed of all modem poets for what is deep and essential in nature." 

25 162 Howitt's ballad- verse. Mary Howitt (i 799-1888), wife of 



NOTES 153 

William Howitt (i 792-1879), wrote, with her husband, several volumes 
of verse, of which the chief are The Forest Minstrel (1827) and Book of 
the Seasons (1831). 

25 162 Tennyson's enchanted reverie. Tennyson (i 809-1 892) had pub- 
lished in 1842 two volumes, which contained most of his finest lyrics, 
and the best of the poems he had composed prior to that date. They 
include Locksley Hall, Ulysses, The Lady of Shalott, and the Dream of 
Fair Women. His fame as a great poet was assured by this publication. 

25 163 from Browning some "Pomegranate." Robert Browning 
(181 2-1889) published a series of poems under the title Bells and 
Pojuegranates during the years 1841-1846. They include Pippa Passes 
and the Dramatic Lyrics, which are among the most popular of his 
writings. Cf. Introd., p. xv. 

27 193-194 books are men . . . future times to hear. Cf. Milton, 
Areopagitica : " Books are not absolutely dead things, but do contain 
a potency of life in them, to be as active as that soul whose progeny 
they are; nay, they do preserve as in a vial the purest efficacy and 
extraction of that living intellect that bred them" ; and Ruskin, Sesame 
and LJlies ("Of Kings' Treasuries"). 

27 197-212 Mrs. Browning here puts forward the same teaching that 
is to be found in the writings of Ruskin and Browning at this period. 

28 222 she smiles them down . . . waves. A beautiful painting by 
Botticein in the Uffizi Gallery at Florence well illustrates the legend 
that Venus was born from the sea foam. 

29 227 Camoens. Luiz de Camoens (i 524-1 580), the greatest poet of 
Portugal, is best known as the author of T/ie Lusiad {\S12). The allusion 
here is to his Rimas, short love poems after the model of the Italians. 

31 268 Pythian : an allusion to Apollo, the god of poetry and inspira- 
tion, whose chief seat of worship was at Delphi, originally called Pytho. 
31 271 amalgamate : amalgamated, mixed so as to form a compound. 

33 296-300 Cf. Burns, Is there for honest poverty : 

The rank is but the guinea's stamp, 
The man 's the gowd for a' that. 

34 311 Parias (usually spelled /«r/a/^j) are actually members of the 
lowest class of the Hindoo population below the four castes ; hence 
the word is commonly used to mean an outcast. 

34 31 7 ermined pride: ermine fur forms an important part of the 
official robes of peers and peeresses ; hence it is a sign of rank. 

35 324 the spheres : the heavenly bodies. 



154 SELECTED POEMS 

37 361 oriel : a portion of the room which juts out and contains win- 
dows looking towards the east. 

37 367 Phemius : the celebrated minstrel who sang to Penelope's 
suitors in the palace of Ulysses at Ithaca. 

37 368 Cf. Shelley, Julian and Aladdalo, 546 : 

Most wretched men 
Are cradled into poetry by wrong ; 
They learn in suffering what they teach in song. 

37 372 Cf. Mrs. Browning's sonnet entitled Grief, beginning, " I tell 
you hopeless grief is passionless." 

38 378 Parian statue-stone. Parian marble was a white marble of 
mellow tone and somewhat large grain, highly valued by the ancients 
and largely used by their sculptors. It was obtained from Mt. Marpessa 
(now Mt. Elias) in Paros, an island in the ^Egean Sea. The quarries 
are not yet exhausted. 



THE RHYME OF THE DUCHESS MAY 

First published in Pocvis, 1844. 

40 4 rebecks. The rebeck is the earliest form of musical instrument 
belonging to the viol class. It usually had three strings, but some- 
times only one or two. It was used in Europe as early as the eighth 
century and is supposed to have been invented by the Moors of Spain. 

45 125 blee : color, hue. Cf. Old English bled, bliS: color, hue, 
complexion. 

46 139 faulchion : falchion. 

47 151 muckle : much; a northern form of Old English my eel, great. 

48 181 passionate: affected with grief and sorrow, suffering agony. 
Cf. the passion of our Lord. 

55 329 pardie : literally, "by God!" {pa7- Dien !); an archaic oath 
or interjection. 

55 337 selle : an obsolete form of sell, sl saddle. 

58 388 passing-bell: a church bell tolled at the time of a person's 
death or immediately afterwards. 

59 423 thick-bossed: thickly studded with knobs or protuberant 
ornaments. 

60 439 eternity's evangel : the good tidings of eternity. Cf. Greek 
angelos, a messenger. 



NOTES 155 



THE LOST BOWER 



First published in Poems, 1844- The scene of the poem is a wood above the 
"^rd>nat Hop3End(cf.Introd.,pp.ix,x), and the subject is an actual fact of 
EUzabsth Barrett's childhood. 

Gl 1 orchard closes. A close is any place surrounded by a fence, wall, 
or hedge ; hence orchards so inclosed are here meant. 

61 10 Summer-snow of apple-blossoms. Cf. Heine, Harzreise, " Der 
wcisse Blnthcnschautn bleibt an den Baumen hangen " (the white foam 
of blossoms hangs on the trees). 

63 45 William Langland's Vision of William concerning Piers the 
Phnvman was probably composed about 1362. 

64 68-70 Cf. Ariosto, Orlando Fnrioso, canto i, stanzas 10-13. 

66 120 window-mullion : the upright division between the lights of 
windows in Gothic architecture. 

66 121-125 When a child Elizabeth Barrett was noted for her skill 
in cultivating white roses. 

68 162 Dryad : nymphs of the trees. The Greeks imagined that the 
nymphs lived in the trees and died when the trees died. 

68 168 170 Ave Marys: prayers to the Virgin. 

69 183 Pan was the Greek god of flocks and herds, hence the patron 
of shepherds who inspired pastoral and nature poetiy. 

69 183 Faunus, half man, half goat, was the attendant of Pan, and is 
sometimes identified with Pan. A most beautiful representation of a 
faun is to be seen in a statue by Praxiteles in the sculpture gallery 
of the Capitol at Rome. That statue plays an important part in 
Nathaniel Hawthorne's novel, The Marble Faun (i860). 

70 208 nympholeptic : snatching at something far above. Cf. Robert 
Browning's poem Numpholeptos, in which a nymph has entranced a 
young man who has fallen in love with her heavenly attractions. 

70 209 virelay: an old French verse form in short lines running on 
two rhymes. Cf. Austin Dobson, July, for a modem imitation of the 
form. 

70 213 geste : gesture. 

71 238 lusus : a Latin word meaning something done in sport. Cf. 
the expression lusus naturae. 

72 246-2.50 Cf. Amiel, Journal Intime: " Revois deux fois pour voir 
juste, revois qu' une fois pour voir beau " (look twice to see with accu- 
racy, but only look once to see what is beautiful). 



156 SELECTED POEMS 

73 270-275 Cf. Tennyson's version of The Slcepino^ Beauty in The 
Day-Drea7n. 

73 280 (Edipus. The hero of Sophocles's tragedy, CEdipus at Colo- 
110s, was buried at Colonos, Sophocles describes the place as 

the noblest spot 
Colonos, glistening bright. 
Where evermore, in thickets freshly green, 
The clear- voiced nightingale 
Still haunts, and pours her song. 
By purpling ivy hid, 

And the thick leafage, sacred to the god, 
With all its myriad fruits, 
By mortal's foot untouched, 
By sun's hot ray unscathed. 
Sheltered from every blast. 

(Plumptre's translation of the Tragedies of Sophocles^ 

73 281 The story of Aladdin is one of the Arabian A'ights tales. 
76 341 A reference to Miss Barrett's ill health and long confinement 
to her room. 



THE CRY OF THE CHILDREN 

First printed in Blackwood's Magazine^ August, 1843. The poem was sug- 
gested by the report of the commissioners, one of whom was Miss Barrett's 
friend, R. H. Home, appointed to investigate the subject of the employment of 
young children. Mrs. Browning tells how "the first stanza came into my head 
in a hurricane, and I was obliged to make the other stanzas like it." In 1846 
Mr. Russell, the singer, proposed to set it to music with a burden. 

And the threads twirl, twirl, twirl, 

Before each boy and girl, 
And the wheels, big and little, still whirl, whirl, whirl, 

and an accompaniment, agitato, imitating the roar of the machinery. Mrs. 
Browning objected to the proposition, but Robert Browning advised her to 
yield, so long as Russell specified that the burden was by the singer, because 
nothing but good could come of a wider spreading of the poem. 

79 .'jO kirk-chime : church bell. 

79 .56 cerement: cloth dipped in melted wax and used in wrapping 
dead bodies when they are embalmed ; hence any grave cloth. 



NOTES 



WINE OF CYPRUS 



157 



First published in Poems, 1844. Hugh Stuart Boyd (d. 1848) was a blind 
scholar and great friend of Miss Barrett's. She frequently visited him and read 
and discussed Greek literature with him. Besides this poem, three sonnets pub- 
lished in Vol. I of Poems (1850) commemorate the friendship. Robert Browning 
always said that this poem affected him more profoundly than any other the 
poetess ever wrote. 

83 1 Bacchus : the god of wine in Roman mythology. He is repre- 
sented as a beautiful youth with flowing golden locks crowned by a 
wreath of ivy. His chariot was drawn by panthers. 

83 3 Cyprus . . . beaker. The island of Cyprus is famed for its excel- 
lent wine. 

83 5 Ida: a mountain range of Mysia in Asia Minor. 

83 7 Juno: in Roman mythology the wife of Jupiter and queen of 
Olympus. 

84 ].') Titan. The Titans were the giant gods who ruled in Olympus 
under Cronos until overthrown by Zeus. Cf. Keats, Hyperion. 

85 44 Anacreon (563-478 B.C.) : a Greek poet who wrote odes, chiefly 
in praise of the Muses, wine, and love. 

85 49 the Chian : wine produced in Chios, one of the most beautiful 
and fertile of the ^gean Islands. 

85 51 Rhea's lion. Rhea was the wife of Saturn, and mother of 
Ceres, Juno, Neptune, Pluto, etc. She is generally represented seated 
on a throne with lions by her, or in a chariot drawn by lions. 

85 53 Paphia: Venus. Paphos was a city of Cyprus in which Venus 
was worshiped. 

85 55 Hymettus : a mountain in Attica famous for its honey. 

86 61-62 Ulysses . . . every part : an allusion to Homer's Odyssey, 
Book XI, where the ceremonies performed by Ulysses on his descent 
into hell are described. 

86 64 Hades : the lower regions (hell) of Greek mythology. 

86 69 Boyd lived at Great Malvern, Worcestershire. 

86 75 An allusion to the chorus, an important feature of the Greek 
drama. 

86 77 cothurns : the buskins (boots with high heels designed to add 
to the stature and so to the dignity of the tragic actor) of the Greeks 
and Romans. Among the ancients the cothurnus was a characteristic 
part of the costume of tragic actors ; hence the word is sometimes fig- 
uratively used for tragedy. Cf. Milton, // Paiseroso : 



158 SELECTED POEMS 

Sometime let gorgeous Tragedy 
In scepter'd pall come sweeping by, 
Presenting Thebes, or Pelops' line, 
Or the tale of Troy divine, 
Or what (though rare) of later age 
Ennobled hath the buskin'd stage. 

86 81 ^schylus (525-456 b.c.) : the father of Greek tragedy. 
Only seven of the sixty plays ascribed to him survive, among them 
the Pi-oj}iethetts Bound (in some ways the perfection of his art) and the 
trilogy of the Oresieia, comprising the Againemnon, perhaps the greatest 
of all Greek plays. Mrs. Browning translated the Proniethetis Bounds 
and Robert Browning the Agamemnon. 

86 85 Sophocles (496-405 B.C.) : the greatest Greek tragic poet. 
Only seven of his plays survive, but each of those is a masterpiece of 
human genius. As a dramatic artist Sophocles reigns supreme. 

87 89 Euripides (480-406 b.c.) : the latest of the three great tragic 
poets of Greece. A larger number of his plays have survived than of 
either of the others. Robert Browning prefixed lines 89-92 to his Balaiis- 
tioiCs Adventure (187 1), which contains his transcript from Euripides's 
Alcesiis, and writes towards the end : 

I know the poetess who graved in gold, 

Among her glories that shall never fade. 

This style and title for Euripides, 

'■'■The Human with his drofpi7igs of warm tears P 

87 93 Theocritus (b. cir. 300 B.C.) : a Greek poet, the originator of 
pastoral poetry. His short poems dealing with pastoral subjects, and 
representing a single scene, came to be called idyls (Gr. eidnllia), " little 
pictures." He greatly influenced both Virgil and Tennyson. 

87 93 Bion : a Greek bucolic poet who flourished in the third cen- 
tury B.C. Little of his work has survived except h\s Lament for Adonis, 
translated by Mrs. Browning and published in Vol. I of the 1850 edition 
of Poems. 

87 94 Pindar (522-443 B.C.) : a great Greek lyric poet w'ho cele- 
brated in his odes the victories in the national games. 

87 97 Plato (427-347 B.C.) : the great Greek philosopher. He was 
a disciple of Socrates and embodied the results of his own speculations 
and those of his master in a long series of written Dialogues, of which 
the Reptiblic is perhaps the most important. 



\ 



NOTES 159 

87 103 hyssop : a plant referred to in the Old Testament, and identi- 
fied with the common caper. It played a part in the purification cere- 
monies of the temple. 

87 105 Chrysostom (a.d. 347-407): so named (Gr. c/irysostofnos, golden- 
mouthed) from his great eloquence. He preached chiefly at Antioch, 
and is reputed the greatest orator of the Church. He has left works 
consisting of admirable Homilies and of Conit^ientaries on the Bible. 

87 107 Basil {cir. a.d. 329-379) : one of the greatest of the Greek 
fathers of the Church. 

87 109 Heliodorus, the earliest and best of the Greek romance writers, 
flourished in the fourth century a.d. His work was distinguished by 
its strict morality. 

87 113 Synesius {cir. a.d. 378-430) turned Christian under the in- 
fluence of Hypatia of Alexandria about 401 and became bishop of 
Ptolemais. His life and works are of great interest for the study of 
the relations between Neoplatonism and Christianity. 

88 117 Nazianzen. Gregory Nazianzen («>. a.d. 325-390) led a life of 
religious study at Nazianzus. His very numerous works, which consist 
of poems, speeches, and letters — he was before all an orator — combine 
what there is in Christianity of the mystic and Oriental with the sym- 
metry and harmony of the Greek genius. 

88 121 Ate : the goddess of vengeance and mischief in Greek 
mythology. 

88 123 " De Virginitate " : a poem on Celibacy by Nazianzen. In 
her essays on The Greek Christian Poets, first printed in The AthejicEuni 
(London), 1842, Miss Barrett writes: "The poem on Celibacy — which 
state is commended by Gregory as becometh a bishop — has occasion- 
ally graphic touches, but is dull enough generally to suit the fairest 
spinster's view of that melancholy subject." 

88 127 St. Simeon, the Stylite, spent thirty-seven years on different 
pillars, each loftier and narrower than the preceding. He was imitated 
by a group of Christian ascetics, which persisted until the twelfth cen- 
tury. Stylite is derived from the Greek sticlos, a column. Cf. Tenny- 
son, St. Simeoji Sty lit es : 

I, Simeon of the pillar, by surname 

Stylites, among men ; I, Simeon, 

The watcher on the column till the end. 

88 135 your Persons. Richard Porson (i 759-1808) was an eminent 
critic and Greek scholar. 



l6o SELECTED POEMS 

88 138 Cassandra, the daughter of Priam, was gifted with the power 
of prophecy, but no one beUeved her predictions. She plays an impor- 
tant part in i^schylus's Agame7nnon. 

89 141 Prometheus stole fire from Heaven and taught its uses to 
mortals. He forms the subject of one of -^schylus's finest plays. 

89 145 Medea, daughter of the king of Colchis, was a sorceress who 
helped Jason, the leader of the Argonauts, to obtain the golden fleece. 
She married Jason, and becoming jealous of him, in revenge murdered 
two of her children before his face. That episode is the subject of a 
tragedy by Euripides. 

89 147 (Edipus unwittingly murdered his father and married his 
mother, not knowing the relationship of either to himself. When he 
discovered what he had done, he put out his eyes, left Thebes, and, 
accompanied by his daughter Antigone, returned to Colonos, where he 
died and was buried. His history forms the subject of two plays by 
Sophocles. 

90 172 oenomel: a drink made of wine mixed with honey. 

THE ROMANCE OF THE SWAN'S NEST 

First published in Vol. II of Poems, 1844. The idea of the poem is akin to 
that of The Lost Bower. In that case it was the loss of a dream, an illusion ; 
here it is a real loss, — the destruction of the nest. 

THE DEAD PAN 

First published in Poems, 1844. The Greek writer Plutarch tells how, when 
Christ was born, the oracles ceased, and a voice was heard by mariners at sea 
crying, " The great Pan is dead ! " Cf. Milton, Ode on the Moryiing of Chrisfs 
Nativity, stanzas xix-x.xi. 

The Oracles are dumb ; 
No voice or hideous hum 
Runs through the arched roof in words deceiving. 
Apollo from his shrine 
Can no more divine, 
With hollow shriek the steep of Delphos leaving. 
No nightly trance, or breathed spell, 
Inspires the pale-eyed priest from the prophetic cell. 

The lonely mountains o'er, 
And the resounding shore, 
A voice of weeping heard and loud lament ; 



NOTES l6l 

From haunted spring, and dale, 

Edged with poplar pale, 
The parting Genius is with sighing sent ; 
With flower-inwoven tresses torn 
The Nymphs in twilight shade of tangled thickets mourn. 

In consecrated earth, 
And on the holy hearth, 
The Lars and Lemures moan with midnight plaint ; 
In urns and altars round, 
A drear and dying sound 
Affrights the fiamens at their service quaint ; 
A.nd the chill marble seems to sweat. 
While each peculiar power foregoes his wonted seat. 

95 1 Hellas. The ancient Greeks called their country Hellas; the 
Romans gave it the name Graecia. 

95 9 .Ethiopia : a country of Africa, south of Egypt. 

95 10 Pygmies. Greek legend tells of a nation of dwarfs dwelling 
on the banks of the Upper Nile. Every spring the cranes made war on 
them and devoured them. 

95 11 mandragora : a vegetable narcotic to which many superstitions 
were attached by the ancients. 

95 13 lotus : the Egyptian water lily. 

96 23-24 According to the Ptolemaic system of the universe, nine 
transparent spheres, carrying the sun, moon, planets, and fixed stars, 
revolved round the earth, which was stationary. 

97 64 Jove : Jupiter, or Zeus, the chief god of the Greeks and 
Romans, king of Olympus and of earth. The eagle was his attendant 
liird. 

98 80 the Muses : the nine daughters of Jupiter and Mnemosyne, 
goddesses of poetry, history, and other arts and sciences. 

98 83 Niobe. According to Greek mythological legend, Niobe, the 
mother of twelve children, taunted Latona, who had only two, — Apollo 
and Diana. In revenge Latona's children caused all the sons and 
daughters of Niobe to die. She, inconsolable, wept herself to death 
and was changed into a stone from which ran water. There is a fine 
group of Niobe and her children, probably by the Greek sculptor 
Praxiteles, in the Uffizi Gallery, Florence. 

98 86 Pallas : Pallas Athene, or Minerva, was the goddess of wisdom. 

98 94 Maenads : a name of the Bacchantes. In the festivals of 
Bacchus their actions were those of mad women. 



l62 SELECTED POEMS 

98 97 Evohe : a joyous shout used in the festivals of Bacchus. 
98 106 Aphrodite : the Greek name of Venus. 

98 107 native foam. Cf. Lady Geraldine's Cotcrtship, 28 222 and 
note. 

98 108 cestus : the girdle of Venus, which had the magical power of 
moving to ardent love. 

99 110 Ai Adonis : a sign of woe. Adonis was a beautiful youth 
beloved by Venus. He was killed during the chase, and the spot on 
which his blood fell was sprinkled with nectar by Venus, who grieved 
greatly for his death. On this spot sprang up the anemone and other 
flowers. Cf. Shakespeare, Venus and Adouis. 

99 113 the Loves. Cupid, the son of Venus, is always represented as 
a naked blind boy armed with a bow and arrows. 

99 115 Frore : frozen (obsolete). 

99 120 Hermes : the Greek name of Mercury, the herald of the gods. 

99 123 caduceus : the wand always carried by Mercury. 

99 127 Cybele (known also as Rhea: cf. note, p. 157): a Greek god- 
dess, generally represented as a robust woman with keys in her hand, 
her head crowned with turrets. 

99 136 Vesta. In Roman mythology Vesta was the goddess of the 
home. The chief duty of the virgins consecrated to her service was to 
take care that the fire in her temple was never extinguished. 

100 149 obolus : a small Greek coin. 

100 162-181. An allusion to Plutarch's story. 

102 201 Dodona: the most ancient oracle in Greece. 

102 204 Pythia: the priestess of Apollo, who delivered the answers 
at Delphi, a famous oracle in Greece. Cf. note, p. 153. 

102 214 of yore : literally, of years. 

102 220 Schiller (i 759-1 805). The great German poet, in his poem 
The Gods of Greece, laments the death of the gods, and regrets that with 
them beauty and art and poetry died out of the world. Mrs. Browning 
takes a different view. 0-4--*^ J►'Uv^-*-'^_ 

102 230 aureole: a luminous emanation, or cloud, surrounding a 
figure or an object. 

103 236 Phoebus : Apollo, the sun. 
103 241 illumed: illumined. 



NOTES 163 



A MUSICAL INSTRUMENT 

First printed in TJie CornJilll Magazine^ then under Thackeray's editorship, 
July, i860. Pan is treated throughout the poem as the god of poets and the 
inventor of the syrinx, or Pandean pipes. He is always represented as having 
horns, a goat's beard, a crooked nose, pointed ears, a tail, and goat's feet. 



SONNETS FROM THE PORTUGUESE 

Privately printed, 1847, as '■'■Sonnets, by E. B. B.," and first offered to the 
public in Vol. II of Poetns, 1850. These forty-four sonnets (the sonnet entitled 
Future and Past was incorporated as No. 42 of the Satinets from the Portuguese 
in the edition of 1856) were written by Elizabeth Barrett during the period of 
Robert Browning's courtship and engagement, and were not shown to him until 
some months after their marriage. Edmund Gosse, in Critical Kit-Kats (1896), 
relates the story as told him by Robert Browning: "One day early in 1847, 
their breakfast being over, Mrs. Browning went upstairs, while her husband 
stood at the window watching the street till the table should be cleared. He 
was presently aware of some one behind him, although the servant was gone. 
It was Mrs. Browning, who held him by the shoulder to prevent his turning to 
look at her, and at the same time pushed a packet of papers into the pocket of 
his coat. She told him to read that and to tear it up if he did not like it ; and 
then she fled again to her own room." Recognizing their greatness, Browning 
felt that he dared not reserve to himself " the finest sonnets written in any lan- 
guage since Shakespeare's," and persuaded his wife to print them. He suggested 
the title Sonnets from the Portuguese (Mrs. Browning proposed Sonnets trans- 
lated froju the Bosnian^ because one of his favorite poems in her works was 
Catarina to Cambens. Catarina, wrote Mrs. Browning in 1855 to Ruskin, who 
had admired the poem, " is his [i.e. Browning's] favourite among my poems for 
some personal fanciful reasons besides the rest." 

The sonnets here selected are numbered in the series I, X, XIV, XX, XXVI, 
and XLIII, respectively. 



EXAGGERATION, ADEQUACY, AND INSUFFICIENCY 

These three sonnets were first published in Poans, 1844. 

LIFE AND LOVE 

First printed in Vol. II of Poetus, 1850. 



l64 SELECTED POEMS 

INCLUSIONS 
First printed in Vol. II of Poems, 1850. 

A DENIAL 

First printed in the 1856 edition of the collected poems. 

PROOF AND DISPROOF 

First printed in the 1856 edition of the collected poems. 

QUESTION AND ANSWER 

First printed in the 1856 edition of the collected poems. 
These five poems, like the Sonnets from the Portuguese, are a commentary on 
the poetess's love story. 

A DRAMA OF EXILE 

(Lines 417-550; 1823-1907) 

First printed in Vol. I of Poems, 1844. In her preface to the poems published 
in 1844 Miss Barrett herself refers to the subject of this poem thus : " My subject 
was the new and strange experience of the fallen humanity, as it went forth 
from Paradise into the wilderness ; with a peculiar reference to Eve's allotted 
grief, which, considering that self-sacrifice belonged to her womanhood, and the 
consciousness of originating the Fall to her offence, — appeared to me imper- 
fectly apprehended hitherto, and more expressible by a woman than a man." 
The poem, in fact, is an expression of the idea that the woman who brought sin 
into the world shall free the world from sin. The passages here selected are 
those that embody the woman's point of view and are therefore of special inter- 
est psychologically. The form approaches that of the Greek drama and consists 
of 2270 lines of blank verse interspersed in the Greek manner with many beauti- 
ful lyrics. She says herself, " I never wrote any poem with so much^ sense of 
pleasure in the composition, and so rapidly, with continuous flow — from fifty to 
a hundred lines a day, and quite in a glow of pleasure and impulse all through." 

The scene of the drama is the outer side of the gate of Eden shut fast with 
cloud, from the depth of which revolves a sword of fire self-moved. In the first 
passage Adam and Eve are in the extremity of the sword-glare, and in the second 
they have moved farther on, and a wild, open country is seen vaguely in tlie 
approaching night. The vision of Christ appears in the midst of the zodiac, 
which pales before the heavenly light. 

117 \'^, 14 Cf. Genesis iii. 15. 



NOTES 165 

119 82 sublimate: purify, idealize (properly a process in chemistry 
by which a solid substance is brought by heat into a state of vapor). 

121 7 afQatus : an impelling mental force acting from within; hence 
religious, poetic, or oratorical inspiration. 

121 20 dark: darkness (adjective for noun). 

122 61 forfeit : deprived of by one's own act. 

A VISION OF POETS 
(Lines 214-423) 

First printed in Vol. II of Poems, 1844. In this poem, of which only the por- 
tion that presents the great poets of the world is given here. Miss Barrett endeav- 
ored to indicate the necessary relations of genius to suffering and self-sacrifice. 
" I have attempted to express in this poem my view of the mission of the poet, 
of the self-abnegation implied in it, of the great work involved in it, . . . and of 
the obvious truth, above all, that if knowledge is power, suffering should be 
acceptable as a part of knowledge." It is written in stanzas, each one an octo- 
syllabic triplet. Tennyson's Ttvo Voices (1833) is in the same meter, but Miss 
Barrett in a letter to Robert Browning written in 1846 disclaims any debt to 
Tennyson, even for the " rhymetical form " of the poem. Robert Browning 
greatly admired the passage selected here : " A line, a few words, and the man is 
there," was his criticism. 

124 18 woof: the threads that run from side to side of a v»eb. 

124 19 architrave : in architecture that which rests immediately on a 
column, and supports those portions of the structure that are above it. 

125 42 Sinai's Law. Cf. Exodus xix et seq. 

126 77-78 Cf. Keats, Ode on a Grecian Urn : 

' Beauty is truth, truth beauty,' — that is all 
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know. 

127 81 cilix : the hair shirt worn by monks and ascetics next the 
skin as a means of mortifying the flesh without ostentation. 

127 82 Homer, the earliest of Greek poets, lived probably 850-800 B.C. 
His name is inseparably connected with the world epics, the I/iad (the 
wrath of Achilles) and the Odyssey (the wanderings and return of 
Ulysses). It is probable that the poems are by several hands, and that 
when they were finished they were designated by the name of one of 
the authors — Homer. Cf. Tennyson, T/ie Palace of Art: 

And there the Ionian father of the rest ; 

A million wrinkles carved his skin ; 
A hundred winters snow'd upon his breast. 



i66 Selected poems 

127 97 Hesiod : a Greek poet; he flourished about the eighth 
century i?.c. His chief poem, — which is poor poetry, — IVorks ami 
Days, gives a valuable picture of the Greek village community of his 
time. 

127 105 Sappho: the greatest poetess of antiquity; flourished about 
596 B.C. Her lyrics are unsurpassed for depth of feeling, passion, and 
grace. 

128 112 Aristophanes (448-388 b.c.) : the greatest of Greek comedy 
writers. Only eleven of his fifty-four plays are extant. His four mas- 
terpieces are the Ac/iarnians, the A'nig/iis, the Clouds, and the U^isps. 
Political satire is their prevailing characteristic. His style is so fine, so 
supple, and so varied that Plato is said to have written of him, " The 
Graces, seeking an imperishable sanctuary, found the soul of Aris- 
tophanes." 

128 116 Virgil (70-19 B.C.) : the greatest of Latin poets ; he was born 
near Mantua in Italy. He went to Rome and became one of the court 
poets of the Emperor Augustus, and owed much to his patron Maecenas. 
His chief works are the ^^/^^z/^j, pastorals modeled on those of Theoc- 
ritus ; the Georgics, which deal with the arts of agriculture ; and the 
yEneid, one of the great epic poems of the world, dealing with the life 
of i^neas the Trojan, the legendary founder of the Roman nation. 
Cf. Tennyson's beautiful lines To Virgil. 

128 120 An allusion to a famous passage in the Georgics on the 
subject of bees. Cf. Tennyson, To Virgil: 

Thou that singest wheat and woodland, 

tilth and vineyard, hive and horse and herd. 

128 121 Lucretius: a Latin poet; he lived in the first half of the 
first century B.C. His chief work is De A\jhira Rerum (Concerning the 
Nature of Things), a poem in which he denies all religious belief, setting 
up as the highest good a calm and tranquil mind, to be reached only 
through a materialistic philosophy. Cf. Tennyson's poem, Lturetins 
(published 1868). 

128 130 Ossian : a Gaehc heroic poet, said to have flourished in the 
third century. James Macpherson (i 736-1 796), the alleged translator 
of the Ossianic poems, probably arranged what he found and in the 
process occasionally combined legends of different periods. Macpher- 
son's Ossiaii had great influence on European literature. 

129 136 Ariosto (1474-1533), one of the greatest poets of Italy, pub- 
lished the first edition of his Orlando Fitrioso, an epic of the adventures 



I 



NOTES 167 

of Roland that forms a continuation of Boiardo's Orlando Innamorato, 

in 1 516. 

129 139 Dante (i 265-1321), the greatest of Italian poets and author 
of the Divine Comedy, one of the great epics of the world, was bom at 
Florence, and died and was buried at Ravenna. He also wrote the 
Xeii' Life, a record in prose and verse of his love for Beatrice. The 
greater part of his life was spent as a political exile in wandering from 
city to city. Cf. Tennyson, The Palace of Art : 

And there the world-worn Dante grasp'd his song, 
And somewhat grimly smiled. 

129 142 Alfieri (1 749-1803): an Itahan dramatist ; he is the author of 
twenty-one tragedies and six comedies. 

129 144 Boiardo (1434-1494): an Italian poet, whose fame rests on 
his long narrative poem, the Orlando Innamorato (i486), a recast of 
the old Charlemagne romances. Cf. note on Ariosto above. 

129 145 Berni {cir. 1497-1535) : an Italian poet, who recast Boiardo's 
Orlando Innamorato (see note to Boiardo above) in 1542. Berni's ver- 
sion is read in Italy in preference to the original. 

129 148 Tasso (i 544-1 595) : the author of the Italian epic La Gcru- 
salemme Liberata (Jerusalem Delivered), an idealized story of the First 
Crusade, completed in 1575. The next year he began to show signs of 
mental disorder (induced, it is erroneously said, by a hopeless passion 
for the Princess Leonora d'Este, sister of his patron, the Duke of 
Ferrara), and was confined for seven years. During that period his 
poem was published without his permission or revision and was at once 
recognized as a great work. He was liberated in 1 586. His story forms 
the subject of Goethe's play Torquato Tasso. 

129 151 Racine (1639-1699): the great French dramatist; he is 
regarded in France as the greatest of all masters of tragic pathos. He 
is perhaps greater as a poet than as a dramatist. 

129 151 Comeille (i 606-1 684) : the greatest of French tragic drama- 
tists. His first great tragedy was The Cid, and it was quickly followed 
by such fine works as Horace, Cinna, and Polyencte. 

130 165 Calderon(i6oo-i68i): thegreatest dramatist of Spain; he was 
the author of one hundred and eighteen dramas. Schlegel, the German 
critic, placed him as a fourth after Homer, Dante, and Shakespeare ; 
but his fideUty to Spanish modes of thought and to the manners of his 
age and country must detract from his universal fame. 



l68 SELECTED POEMS 



130 166 [Lope] de Vega (1562-1635): a most prolific Spanish writer 
for the stage; he produced some twelve hundred plays between 1588 
and the year of his death. Both Moliere and Calderon owe something 
to his work. 

130 169 Goethe (i 749-1832), the great German writer, was the author 
of plays, lyrics, prose tales, and scientific and critical works. Faust 
is his greatest drama, and Wilhebn Meisters Lehrjahre is perhaps his 
greatest prose work. Cf. Matthew Arnold, Memorial Verses : 

When Goethe's death was told, we said : 
Sunk, then, is Europe's sagest head. 

And he was happy, if to know 
Causes of things, and far below 
His feet to see the lurid flow 
Of terror, and insane distress. 
And headlong fate, be happiness. 

130 172 Schiller (i 759-1 S05): the foremost of German dramatists, and 
one of the greatest dramatists of the world. The trilogy IVallejistein 
( 1 798-1 799) ranks as his finest drama. From 1794 he was the friend of 
Goethe, and the correspondence of the two poets is of the highest interest. 

130 181 Cowley (1618-1667) wrote verses of no great excellence, 
though very popular in his lifetime. His claim to the remembrance of 
posterity resides in his Essays^ published in 1668. 

130 184 Drayton (1563-1631): the greatest of the group sometimes 
called Patriotic Poets, including Warner and Daniel. Drayton's most 
considerable poem is Poly-Olbioii^ a poetical description of England, of 
the wonders of "Albion's glorious isle," published between 161 2 and 1622. 

130 184 Browne (i 591-1645 ?) : the author of Britannia''s Pastorals 
(1613), a poem that tells in quiet, cheerful fashion of country sights and 
sounds. 

131 187 Marlowe ( 1 564-1 593) : the greatest English dramatist before 
Shakespeare, was the first to write fine blank verse. Pie is the author 
of four plays, — Tainbiirlaine, Dr. Fatisttis, The Jew of Malta, and 
Edward II. 

131 187 Webster. The work of John Webster, about whose life no 
facts are known, stands among the Elizabethan dramatists next to that 
of Shakespeare in grandeur of conception and execution. His two great 
tragedies are Vittoria Corombona (printed 161 2) and The Duchess of 
Malfi (acted probably in 161 8). 




NOTES 169 

131 187 Fletcher (1579-^625) collaborated with Beaumont (1548- 
1616) in a dozen plays, the best of which are perhaps Phtlaster (acted 
before 161 1) and the Knight of the Burmng Pestle (161 1). 

131187 BenJonson(i573-i637): the chief of the Elizabethan drama- 
tists after Shakespeare. His finest work is to be found m the four 
plays Every Man in hts Humour (1598), Volpone, or the /.x (1605), 
Epiccene, or the Silent Woman (1609), and The Alchemist (1610). 

131194 Keats (1795-1821): cf. Mrs. Browning, Aurora Letgh, 
Book I, lines 1 003-1 010: 

By Keats's soul, the man who never stepped 
In gradual progress like another man, 
But, turning grandly on his central self. 
Ensphered himself in twenty perfect years 
And died, not young (the life of a long life 
Distilled to a mere drop, falling like a tear 
Upon the world's cold cheek to make it burn 
For ever) . 

131 198 Rome-grave. Keats died at Rome and was buried in the 
Protestant cemetery there. Cf. Shelley, Adona^s. stanzas 49-51- 



AURORA LEIGH 

:u::i,fsH:r.:e ^re.^-n: J: r.'C .». :^ son. .a. . .o„.« 

;e„rfan:e'class,_a pen, comprehending the aspec. -d ™nne- oj n,oden, 
hfe. ... I do think that a trne poetical novel - modern, and on the '^ve "^'h- 

■was a uuuuic>a problems atfectmg 

hlank-verse poem of some 10,900 hnes. The story aeais wun p , ^ ^^„ • , 

the two classes. Cf. note to Lady Geraldine^s Courtshtp, p. 151- 



I70 SELECTED POEMS 

A GIRL'S EDUCATION IN THE EARLY NINETEENTH 

CENTURY 

Note the irony of the description, true enough in 1856, but happily things soon 
began to improve. The first girls' high school in England was opened in 1872. 

(Book I, Lines 392-455) 

132 2 Athanasius (a.d. 296-373) : one of the greatest of the fathers 
of the Church. He attended the Nicene Council in 325 and helped to 
establish the Nicene Creed, which opposed the beliefs of Arius and his 
followers. 

132 3 The Articles: The Thirty-Nine Articles of the Church of 
England. 

132 3 Tracts against the times. The Traces /or ^/le T/pies expounded 
the views of the leaders of the religious revival which commenced in 
Oxford in 1833, and was led by John Keble and John Henry (after- 
wards Cardinal) Newman. A woman like Aurora's aunt would have 
been hostile to the movement. 

132 9 Balzac (i 799-1 850): the great French novelist. His finest 
work, the series of novels known as La Comedi'e Hiimaijie, aims at pre- 
senting a complete picture of modem civilization. 

132 9 neologism : a new word or phrase, or new use of a word. 

132 16-17 royal genealogies of Oviedo. Oviedo was a Spaniard, born 
at Madrid in 1847. ^^ wrote a general history of the West Indies. 

132 18 Burmese empire: the largest of all the provinces of the 
Indian Empire. 

132 19 Chimborazo : a high peak of the Andes in Ecuador, South 
America. 

132 22 Klagenfurt: the capital (since 1518) of the duchy of Carin- 
thia in Austria. 

132 29 Tophet: the symbol among the later Jews for hell and tor- 
ment. It was the name of a valley near Jerusalem which was the scene 
of the worship of Moloch. 

133 33 Cellarius (d. 1707) : a learned German writer, sometime pro- 
fessor of history at the University of Halle. 

ENGLAND 

(Book I, Lines 578-645; 1068-1092) 

135 35 Giotto (? 1276-1337). He inaugurated a new era in art by 
going to nature for his models. His finest work in painting (fresco) 
is to be seen in Padua in the Scrovegno Chapel in the old Arena of 



NOTES 



171 



that city. He was superintendent of works of the cathedral of Florence 
and designed the beautiful Campanile. 

135 39 Vallombrosa: a celebrated Benedictine monastery situated 
among the Apennines in a valley surrounded with forests of fir, beech, 
and chestnut trees (hence the name "shady valley"). Cf. Milton, 
Pai'adise Lost, I. 303. 

Thick as autumnal leaves that strow the brooks 
In Vallombrosa, where the Etrurian shades 
High over-arched embower. 

135 60 eyrie: the old spelling of aery ox aerie, the nest of the 
eagle ; hence, figuratively, any lofty habitation. 

ITALY 

Journeying to Italy through France 

(Book VII, Lines 395-489) 

138 38 Thor-hammers. The hammer of Thor, the god of thunder in 
Scandinavian mythology, had the property of returning to his hand after 
being hurled among the heathen Teutons. The sign of the hammer was 
analogous to that of the cross among the Christians. 

138 53 Charlemagne (or Charles the Great) (742-814): a whole litera- 
ture centers round the exploits of Charlemagne and of his generals. 

139 76 Odyssean ghosts : an allusion to the eleventh book of Homer's 
Odyssey, in which is related the visit of Odysseus to Hades. 

139 79-80 Tyrlan belt of intense sea: the blue Mediterranean. 

140 9:2 The Doria's long pale palace. The Palazzo Doria, the residence 
of the great Genoese family of the Dorias in the sixteenth century, is 
one of the principal buildings of Genoa. 

FLORENCE 

(Book VII, Lines 515-541) 

140 2 Bellosguardo : a hill outside Florence whence there is a mag- 
nificent view of the beautiful city and its surroundings. 
140 6 Mount Morello : a mountain near Florence. 

CASA GUIDI WINDOWS 

First published in 185 1. The house in which the Brownings lived at Florence 
was called Casa Guidi and was situated near the Pitti Palace. In this poem we 
have the expression of Mrs. Browning's warm championship of the cause of 



1/2 SELECTED POEMS 

Italian liberty. It is, she tells us herself, in the advertisement to the first edition, 
"a simple story of personal impressions," and makes no pretence to •' continuous 
narrative nor exposition of political philosophy." The politics of the poem have 
ceased to interest, but it will live by reason of its sincerity and enthusiasm, and 
its beautiful descriptions of Florence, its art treasures, and its surroundings. We 
give a few of such passages. 

FLORENCE AND MICHEL ANGELO 
(Part I, Lines 49-97) 

14125-26 the sculptor's . . . Twilight. These famous statues, gener- 
ally considered to be Michel Angelo's greatest works in sculpture, are 
in the chapel of the Medici in the Church of San Lorenzo at Florence, 
on the tombs of Giuliano de' Medici, third son of Lorenzo the Magnifi- 
cent, and of Lorenzo of Urbino, his grandson. 

142 45 Princely Urbino. Lorenzo de' Medici (d. 1579) was made 
Duke of Urbino by his uncle, Pope Leo X. 

SAVONAROLA 
(Part I, Lines 250-287) 

142 7 Savonarola (1452-149S). He became Prior of San Marco at 
Florence, and greatly influenced the citizens by his wonderful sermons, 
in which he sometimes questioned the authority of the pope. Finally 
he was burnt as a heretic in the Piazza della Signoria at Florence, 
where it has been a custom to strew with violets the pavement on which 
he suffered martyrdom, in grateful recognition of the anniversaiy. Cf. 
George Eliot's novel Romola, published in 1863. 

143 24 the Magnificent: Lorenzo de' Medici. 

THE CHURCH OF SANTA MARIA NOVELLA: CIMABUE 
(Part I, Lines 320-403) 

144 2 Santa Maria Novella: a Dominican church in Florence, begun 
about 1278. It contains fine frescoes by Ghirlandajo and Orcagna. 

144 3-8 The story is told by Macchiavelli in his description of the 
plague at Florence. 

144 9-10 Orgagna . . . daemons (1308 ?-i 376 ?) : long reputed the 
painter of the frescoes in the Campo Santo at Pisa representing the Tri- 
umph of Death, the Last Judgment, and Hell. He painted the frescoes 



NOTES 173 

in the Strozzi Chapel of the Church of Santa Maria Novella at Florence. 
The name is commonly written Orcagna. 

144 13-41 Cimabue (i 240-?! 302) : the last of the old painters of 
Italy. His most important painting is the colossal Madonna preserved 
in the church of Santa Maria Novella at Florence. Charles of Anjou, 
in his passage through Florence, was permitted to see this picture while 
it was yet in the artist's studio. The populace followed the royal visitor, 
and from the universal delight and admiration, the quarter of the city 
in which the artist lived was called " Borgo Allegri." The picture was 
carried in triumph to the church and deposited there. 

145 60 Margheritone (1216-1293): an Italian painter and sculptor 
and a man of note in his day. He is said (but Httle credence should 
be given to the story) to have died from despair at the success of the 
younger painters whose work was becoming known. 

146 71 Angelico (1387-1455). The best known works of Fra Angelico 
are the frescoes in the monastery of San Marco at Florence. 

146 76 Raffael (1483-1520): Raffaello Sanzio, commonly called 
Raphael, is one of the greatest of Italian painters. 

VALLOMBROSA 
(Part I, Lines 1129-1164) 

146 2 beloved companion: her husband, Robert Browning. 

147 13 Saint Gualbert's altar : in the monastery of Vallombrosa. 
Saint Gualbert (d. 1073) ^'^^ the founder of the order of Vallombrosa. 

LOVE FOR ITALY 
(Part I, Lines 1172-1184) 

148 10 Galileo (i 564-1642). Cf. Paradise Lost, I. 287. 

. . . like the moon, whose orb 
Through optic glass the Tuscan artist views 
At evening, from the top of Fesole 
Or in Valdarno, to descry new lands. 
Rivers, or mountains, in her spotty globe. 



ANNOUNCEMENTS 



STANDARD ENGLISH CLASSICS 

IN THE NEW SERIES BINDING 

THE STANDARD IN SCHOLARLY EDITING, HELPFUL INTER- 
PRETATION, ATTRACTIVENESS, CONVENIENCE, 
REASONABLENESS OF PRICE 

IN EVERY WAY ADAPTED TO MEET THE 

College Entrance Requirements in English 



STANDARD ENGLISH CLASSICS 



LIFE OF 

SAMUEL 
JOHNSON 




THE "Standard English 
Classics Series" has gained 
a very high standing 
throughout the country, largely 
because it fulfills admirably the 
three chief requirements of the dis- 
criminating teacher: its volumes 
embody the highest edito?'ial scholar- 
ship in introductio7i, notes, and other 
aids ; they are attractively and sub- 
stantially bound; a?id are offered 
at remarkably low prices. 
Recently the series has been made still more noteworthy 
by important changes made with the view of perfectly adapt- 
ing the books for practical school use. Every excellent fea- 
ture which has hitherto characterized the series has been 
carefully retained. In addition, the books now offer the 
double advantage of an unusually attractive and convenient 
semi-flexible cloth cover very clearly stamped in gold ink, 
and a considerable reduction in price. 

NOTE. — A complete list of the volumes in this series is given on the following 
page. The books in both the old and the new bindings are included. 



lf^Q,P^\}\.l'C< 



Tfc CINN 6 COMPANY "a. 



GINN & COMPANY Publishers 



STANDARD ENGLISH CLASSICS 



Note. — The asterisk indicates that the volume is now ready in the 
new binding, i6mo. Semi-flexible cloth. 

List MailiHi; 
price price 

*Addison and Steele's Sir Roger de Coverley Papers. From 

" The Spectator." (Litchfield) $0.30 $0.35 

Burke's Letter to a Noble Lord. (Smyth) 30 .35 

Burke's Speech on Conciliation with America. (Lamont) . .30 .40 
*Burns' Representative Poems, with Carlyle's Essay on 

Burns. (Hanson) 30 .35 

Browning, Elizabeth Barrett : Selections. (Lee.) 

(/» preparatioii) 

*Carlyle's Essay on Burns. (Hanson) 25 

*Coleridge's Ancient Mariner. (Gibbs) 20 

*Cooper's Last of the Mohicans. (Dunbar) 50 

De Quincey's Revolt of the Tartars. (Simonds) 25 

Dryden's Palamon and Arcite. (Eliot) 25 

George Eliot's Silas Marner. (Witham) 30 

*Goldsmith's Vicar of Wakefield. (Montgomery) . . . .30 

*Irving's Life of Goldsmith. (Gaston) 40 

*Irving's Sketch Book. (Complete.) (Litchfield) . . . .60 

*Lamb, Essays of. (Wauchope.) 50 

Macaulay's Essay on Milton. (Smith) 20 

Macaulay's Essay on Addison. (Smith) 25 

*Macaulay's Essays on Addison and Milton. (In one 

volume.) (Smith) 30 

Macaulay's Lays of Ancient Rome. (Daniell) 35 

^Macaulay's Life of Samuel Johnson, with a Selection 

from his Essay on Johnson. (Hanson) 25 

*Milton's L' Allegro, II Penseroso, Comus, and Lycidas. 

(Huntington) 25 

Milton's Paradise Lost, Books I and II, and Lycidas. 

(Sprague) 30 

Pope's Translation of the Iliad, Books I, VI, XXII, and 

XXIV. (Tappan) 25 

Scott's Ivanhoe. (Yonge) 60 

*Scott's Lady of the Lake. (Ginn) 35 

*Shakespeare's Julius Caesar. (Hudson) 30 

^Shakespeare's Macbeth. (Hudson) 30 

*Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice. (Hudson) 30 

Tennyson's The Princess. (Cook) 30 

*Tennyson's Gareth and Lynette, Lancelot and Elaine, 

and The Passing of Arthur. (Boughton) 25 



25 
60 

30 
30 
40 

35 
50 
70 

60 

25 
30 

35 
40 



35 

30 

75 
40 

35 

35 
35 
40 



GINN & COMPANY Publishers 



NOV 



1904 



